British Conservatives see solving the problem of illegal immigration as the only way to win the elections at the end of next year. For this reason, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced a radical plan to stop the arrival of small boats through the English Channel: stop those who appear through that route, return them to their places of origin or deport them to Rwanda (London and Kigali have signed an agreement to that effect) and forever deny them the possibility of coming from this country legally and obtaining nationality.
The leader of the Labor opposition, Keir Starmer, today denounced the strategy as doomed to failure because it goes against the European Convention on Human Rights and would be blocked in court. But government officials believe they have found a legal mechanism to circumvent that problem. In the worst case, Sunak will be able to argue before the voters that he has done everything possible, but it is the Justice and his political rivals who prevent the application of the plan.
So far this year alone, and despite the winter weather, more than three thousand asylum seekers have arrived by boat on the Kent coast, and it is estimated that by 2023 around 85,000 will do so, a new record. Sunak is going to travel to Paris this week to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron and try to get his collaboration on a joint plan to reduce legal immigration through the English Channel, make the French police more proactive, and be able to return to France those who try to cross in a boat.
This is an issue that greatly irritates many socially conservative voters in the affected regions and in the north of England, who see the arrival of foreigners as a threat to their standard of living, accusing them of stealing their jobs and overloading social services (although the statistics do not indicate that this is the case, and in fact they contribute to growing the economy and paying the pensions of an aging population, doing jobs that the English do not even want to see in painting). In recent weeks, in an increasingly difficult climate, there have been several attacks on hotels that house asylum seekers.
Until now all the attempts of the recent Conservative governments to solve the problem have crashed with practical questions. No flights have been made to Rwanda because they have been prevented by the Courts following appeals from lawyers and human rights groups who consider the strategy an aberration, and none are expected throughout the year, unless Sunak draw an unexpected card from the sleeve. Downing Street’s position is considered by its critics to be quite cynical and contradictory, because after Brexit immigration has actually increased. What has happened is that European workers, who no longer enjoy freedom of movement within the EU, have been more than replaced by Asians and Africans from Commonwealth countries and former British colonies.
Stopping illegal immigration is one of Sunak’s promises to his compatriots ahead of the upcoming elections. Buoyed by the generally favorable reaction to his new Brexit deal with the EU over the Northern Ireland Protocol, his next goal is to come up with a radical solution to the arrival of small boats. If he succeeded, he would win a lot of points in the eyes of a wide section of voters. And if not, he means that he at least has tried with all his might.
