IMMIGRATION AND THE SMALL BOATS ''CRISIS'

I have for many years kept out of the debate about illegal immigration into the United Kingdom as it seems to be a topic about which everyone has an opinion, and no-one has a solution.

The main bone of contention it seems is the small boats crossing the English Channel from France, although in reality they make up only a small proportion of the number of immigrants, both legal and illegal, who enter the country every year.

In the year ending June 2024, 1.2 million people migrated to the UK and  479,000 people emigrated from the UK, meaning  the net migration to the UK was 728,000.

According to Migration Watch UK the number arriving illegally across the channel from France was, in 2024, 35,040, or a little under 3% of the total number of immigrants, both legal and illegal, into the UK.

However, because of the very visible nature of the cross-channel traffic, on the TV every night and in our newspapers daily, it has assumed an artificial significance greater than it actually merits.

If we are to reduce immigration into this country then we need to consider the 1,200, 000 people, equivalent to the population of Birmingham, who arrive here each year otherwise than in a rubber boat, and no-one is even talking about this, let alone doing anything about it.

Our tireless Home Secretary is obsessed with one thing and one thing only, her constant mantra that she will "smash the gangs".

Of course, she has no idea how to do this bar jetting around the continent begging someone else to show her the way. As anyone with even just one brain cell would know, United Kingdom jurisdiction starts and stops at Dover; even if we could identify a people smuggler operating in, say Syria, we have no powers to prosecute them, and I doubt very much it is illegal in Syria to facilitate emigration from there to anywhere else.

Which means the 'gangs' can safely laugh in Yvette Cooper's face.

There is, of course, a simple and effective way to stop all small boat crossings of the channel, something that is known to everyone involved, is perfectly legal and is used by Australia for  the very same purpose.

Instead of the Boarder Force vessels currently acting as a taxi service they instead turn the boats around and send them back from whence they came, oh and stop the RNLI also running a 'take you to England' service.

Every maritime nation, such as the UK, has an absolute right under International Law and the Law of the Sea to defend its territorial waters, and there is nothing the European Court of Human Rights, which our politician's are terrified of, could do about it.

When Russia wants to send a warship through the channel it is compelled to notify both France and the United Kingdom of its intention to violate territorial waters and is escorted through the channel by a Royal Naval warship.

Turn back the next rubber boat making an illegal incursion into UK territorial waters and no-one would try again.

Of course, that would require in our PM and Home Secretary both a will to 'stop the boats' and the courage to act,  attributes sadly lacking in both of them. Although I am no fan of Nigel Farrage or his rag-tag party he is the only politician advocating exactly that policy.