Simply ‘crushing the gangs’ won’t stop Channel crossing deaths | Immigration and asylum

The latest tragic deaths in the small boat crisis (Six children under 12 killed in Channel when overcrowded boat ‘ripped open’, 3 September) raise questions about whether the Labour government’s approach of ‘crushing the gangs’ will be enough. Labour was right to scrap the previous government’s Rwanda plan as an expensive gimmick and to focus instead on the people smugglers and traffickers.

Illegal migration is characterised by a variety of push and pull factors, as well as the nature of the migration process itself. While Article 31 of the Refugee Convention recognises that refugees may sometimes have to resort to “irregular means” to obtain protection, handing the entire migration process over to criminal gangs is no solution at all and leads to further exploitation once refugees and migrants reach the UK.

But Labour’s mistake has been to follow the Conservatives in suggesting that one big idea will be decisive in dealing with one of the most complex systemic problems. Shouldn’t all options be on the table at this point? A systemic response requires a range of strengthening interventions. This must include a serious conversation about why the UK labour market remains so permeable to undocumented workers (who are also often exploited) and why stronger internal controls, including a national ID card, are also part of the solution.

If there is one thing we have learned about migration policy in the past decades, it is that there is no silver bullet. Why do we continue to behave as if there is?
John Morrison
Co-author, The Human Trafficking and Smuggling of Refugees (UNHCR); author, The Cost of Survival (Refugee Council)