Despite Channel tragedy, more desperate people are heading this way

Sadly, four of the migrants never made it; one was a teenager. Drones were being used to see if anyone else had perished.

This latest tragedy came almost a year after 27 migrants died making the same perilous Channel crossing and underlines the desperation of many who put their lives and those of unaccompanied children at stake.

Just hours before, Rishi Sunak announced a five-point plan to try to break the criminals’ business model of smuggling people between the continent and Britain.

Politically, the PM knows he is nowhere more vulnerable to Keir Starmer’s charge of being weak than on the migrant issue. One Conservative insider noted: “We need to show people we are still in charge and we can still do things.”

Indeed, it’s not just Labour which is giving Sunak some stick, but also many Tory MPs, particularly those representing red-wall seats, who know the Channel crossings are a major source of disquiet for constituents, who blanch at the £7m daily cost to the taxpayer of accommodating them within a process that is clearly broken.

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In the Commons, the PM told MPs “enough was enough” and pledged that – finally – he was going to get a grip. “Tough but fair” was his catchphrase. But there is no easy solution to this and every individual policy opens itself up to criticism in some regard.

While complaining about the Tory Government’s lack of grip and repeating its deep opposition to the highly contentious Rwanda “gimmick,” it seems Labour is in general agreement, backing the need for “comprehensive action,” that is, a multi-faceted and better co-ordinated approach to cracking down on the people-smugglers. After all, Starmer needs those red-wall seats to form a Commons majority.

The PM’s plan involves more money and more staff plus better liaison with the French Government alongside a new intelligence-gathering and enforcement operational command.

The contentious use of hotels to house asylum-seekers will end with people moving into disused holiday parks and surplus military sites.

The PM also pledged to end the backlog of asylum claims by the end of 2023 with the help of hundreds more caseworkers and overhauling the applications system. This will be essential to easing pressures.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman previously referred to migrants crossing the Channel as an 'invasion' (Image: Newsquest)

Addressing the exponential increase in Albanian migrants, there will be a new agreement with Tirana to return “thousands” of unfounded claimants; a similar position to many other European countries.

Generally, Westminster will set an “annual quota” of asylum-seekers allowed to enter Britain and new laws will be introduced next year to make it “unambiguously clear, if you enter the UK illegally,[ie in a small boat across the Channel] you should not be able to remain here”.

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Which brings us to the Rwanda policy, which has been held up by legal challenges but a court decision is expected next week. Which should be interesting.

Indeed, this week there was a failed bid – backed by 69 Tory MPs and supported by the millionaire speech-maker himself, Boris Johnson, although he didn’t vote on it – to get Britain to opt out of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Conservative backbencher Jonathan Gullis, the bill’s proposer, claimed it would ensure Westminster and “not unaccountable foreign judges in Europe” would have the “final say” on the UK’s asylum system, thus “restoring our great nation’s territorial integrity”.

But Sunak – who, during the Tory leadership contest, pledged he would not allow the ECHR to “inhibit our ability to properly control our borders” – argued against the Gullis bill, insisting it was unnecessary because new legislation would mean people who arrived illegally in Britain would be quickly removed. We’ll see.

The SNP’s Alison Thewliss denounced Gullis’s legislation as an “offensive, grubby, dangerous wee bill”.

One has to ask if people, often with young children, are willing to get into a crowded flimsy dinghy in freezing temperatures at night, what Government policy would deter them from doing so?

This week, Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, who previously courted controversy by branding the numbers crossing the Channel an “invasion,” insisted there were limits, telling MPs there were “100m people around the globe who would like to leave their country of residence and, potentially, come to the UK. That is simply not possible and, therefore, we do need an element of control, combined,” she added, “with compassion and generosity…”

Earlier this week, the SNP’s shiny new leader Stephen Flynn challenged the PM, arguing the “solutions” to the current situation were the establishment of “safe and legal” routes to Britain for asylum-seekers.

The PM pointed out how in the last few years more than 450,000 places had been offered to people from Afghanistan, Syria, Hong Kong and, most recently, Ukraine.

And yet outwith these specifically targeted countries, there doesn’t appear to be a safe and legal route.

Underlining the potential difficulties, some point out that even if you did open up generalised “safe and legal” routes chances are they would become inundated with asylum-seekers as well as those who aren’t but claiming to be. So, numbers would rise not fall.

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So far in 2022 some 45,000 people have crossed the Channel in small boats, well up on the 28,500 who did so last year. Despite this week’s tragedy, hundreds if not thousands more may try to do so before the year’s end.

While ministers earnestly try to tackle the intractable issue of Channel crossings and MPs trade political blows over numbers and about “taking back control” of our borders, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, made a powerful point: this week’s terrible tragedy was, as Christmas approaches, a timely reminder that “debates about asylum-seekers are not about statistics but precious human lives”.