Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Rishi Sunak will fail his migrant mission – but it’s not his fault

Migrants on a small inflatable boat attempt to cross the English Channel near the Dover Strait, 7 September 2020 (Getty Images)

Suella Braverman sparked a backlash last November when she described the number of small boats crossing the Channel as an ‘invasion’. The chattering classes objected to the ‘inflammatory language’ of the Home Secretary rather than the fact that 45,756 people entered Britain illegally in 2022. 

The provocative word this month is ‘infinite’, used by a government source in admitting that even if Britain did stem the flow of Albanians crossing the Channel there are many thousands more migrants desperate to make it to Britain. ‘Their places on the boats would be filled by Somalis, Eritreans or Afghans who can’t afford to pay as much as the Albanians,’ they explained.

The source is not wrong. Frontex, the EU’s Border agency, recorded 308,000 irregular entries at the EU’s external borders between January and November 2022. This is a 68 per cent increase on the same period the previous year. Not since 2016 have so many migrants entered Europe. 

The most active route is the Western Balkans, which accounted for nearly 140,000 entries (45 per cent of the total) –  a 152 per cent increase on 2021. Frontex noted that the preponderance of migrants came not from Somalia or Eritrea, but from Syria, Afghanistan, Turkey and Tunisia.  

The second most populous route into Europe was the Central Mediterranean. 94,000 migrants reached Italian soil in the first eleven months of 2022, up 49 per cent on 2021. Again, most came not from sub-Saharan Africa but from Egypt, Syria, Tunisia and Bangladesh. Incidentally, a recent report in TimeOut revealed that Turkey, Bangladesh and Egypt all feature in the top 10 most popular tourist destinations of 2022.  

The criminal gangs organising the people-smuggling routes into Europe won’t be discouraged by Croatia’s EU entry

These migratory trends are attributed to the worsening economic conditions in the Third World and the relaxation of Covid restrictions across the globe.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Gavin Mortimer
Written by
Gavin Mortimer

Gavin Mortimer is a British author who lives in Burgundy after many years in Paris. He writes about French politics, terrorism and sport.

Topics in this article

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in