The pointlessness of ‘smashing the gangs’
‘Smash the gangs’ is the fascinating slogan that Keir Starmer’s government has settled on for tackling illegal migration. What is the government going to do to stop the hundreds – sometimes thousands – of people sailing across the Channel and coming into England each day? ‘We will smash the gangs,’ they say. The slogan is interesting for reasons beyond the tough-guy rhetoric. For it suggests, of course, that it is people-smuggling gangs that are the main problem. Perhaps our government sees them as being like press gangs back in the day, roaming around northern France, waylaying passing migrants and forcing them on to rubber dinghies to begin a new life
