Britain takes in more illegal migrants than any other European country and is an indictment of Keir Starmer’s ignorant approach

ANOTHER day, another shocking statistic about the number of people breaking into this country.

This time it comes from new research from the University of Oxford which shows that Britain is home to as many as 745,000 illegal migrants.

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This staggering figure amounts to approximately one in every hundred people living here today.

And here’s the kicker: there are now more people living here illegally than in any other European country.

This damning report shows that the number of people living here illegally is now more than double France’s 300,000, and even exceeds Germany’s highest estimate of 700,000.

It’s official: human smugglers have never had it so good.

‘Matte arsenal’

This all comes just days after we set another record for illegal crossings this year, with 973 making the journey in one day in small boats on Sunday, bringing the 2024 total to more than 26,600.

I will be the first to admit that the previous government did not introduce anything to stop the crossing of the Channel.

Under the Conservatives we were blessed with seven Home Secretaries, year after year of record overspend, and a flagship plan for Rwanda that was doomed to failure the moment Rishi Sunak called the general election.

I have always believed that the Rwanda plan should have been given a chance.

The point of the policy was never how many people we could send there, but the signal it would send to those tempted to cross.

It was a deterrent and, quite frankly, the only thing we had in our otherwise lackluster arsenal against human smugglers.

But given Prime Minister Starmer’s first course of action when he was elected was to scrap it, you’d think Labor would have a grand alternative to replace it.

After all, fourteen years in the backseat twiddling your thumbs gives you plenty of time to work out a plan.

Instead, Starmer’s big idea has been to commit £84 million primarily to education and employment support in Africa and the Middle East to “address the factors that push people into small boats” – a feel-good policies whose results we will never see. can really measure.

Secondly, he has created a new task force, the Border Force Command, to “take down the criminal smuggling gangs”.

This all sounds well and good, apart from the fact that the man Starmer appointed to lead the new Border Command Force, Martin Hewitt, has admitted that crushing people smuggling gangs will not stop the boats without a deterrent in place.

Even if the unit manages to take a few smugglers off the streets, the business will be so lucrative it will be like the Hydra. . . Cut off one head and two will grow back.

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Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has also set a target of removing 14,500 illegal migrants in the next six months. Ah! That old chestnut of setting immigration targets.

The last government managed to achieve only less than half of that in the entire year ending March 2024, and this was largely due to the agreements reached with Albania.

This tinkering around the edges of policies that have largely already been tried is as hopeless as it is futile.

And while those who have labeled the Rwanda plan as racist and inhumane pat themselves on the back, our European neighbors continue their work and wake up to the need for real deterrents.

In a plot twist, Germany is now considering using the very same Rwanda program and facilities we paid for to process its illegal migrants.

Labor talks a big game about compassion for those crossing the Channel

Mercy Muroki

Other European countries, long known for their open-door policies, are also starting to tighten the reins.

In May, 15 EU countries, including Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands, signed a joint letter calling on the European Commission to “think outside the box” to tackle illegal migration, including sending migrants to third countries outside the EU.

Those in this country who shudder at the idea of ​​third country processing should let the adults sit at the table and make the decisions.

Labor talks a big game about compassion for those crossing the Channel.

But where is the compassion when we go soft on a problem that is drowning dozens of people on our shores, wasting taxpayers billions and increasing cultural tensions?

Accommodating asylum seekers costs the government more than £8 million a day.

Tip of the iceberg

£5.42 billion was spent on this last year (the majority of which was spent on hotels). This was over a billion more than the year before.

The government keeps telling us that it will make ‘difficult decisions’ in this parliament.

This is code for the fact that we will be taxed even more heavily than under the Tories, with the budgets of some public services inevitably being cut to close the now infamous ‘black hole’.

Taking away pensioners’ winter fuel payments to save £1.4 billion was just the tip of the iceberg.

If only the government’s rhetoric, let alone actions, in tackling one of the biggest problems facing voters was anywhere near as harsh or decisive.

Between the winter fuel crisis, the freebies scandal and the embarrassing Sue Gray case, Labor is currently in trouble.

If they want to show the millions of people who voted for them that they have control, then actually curbing illegal migration would be a start.