This year’s record was again broken with 872 migrants seen in small boats.
British MPs will soon return to Westminster after the summer recess. Rishi Sunak is facing a real challenge, since he may be requested to demonstrate the results of his five key pledges.
The problem is compounded by a number of failures: the departure of his director of communications, Amber de Botton, after just a year in the role; by the strike of junior doctors and consultants which coincided with Rishi Sunak’s first Tory party conference; by the disastrous solution to use unsafe reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), which led to the closure of more than 100 schools.
However, at the moment the most pressing problem is the increased number of migrants arriving in the UK in boats. Only yesterday, more than 800 people were spotted crossing the Channel in 15 vessels.
However, according to Sky News, the number of arrivals has decreased by 17% compared to the last year. Despite this, Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper insists that Rishi Sunak has seriously broken his promise regarding the small vessels. It resulted in smugglers gaining a foothold on Britain’s borders.
The prime minister should drop his headline-chasing gimmicks and instead back Labour’s plan to stop dangerous Channel crossings by cracking down on criminal gangs, securing a returns deal with Europe, and clearing the asylum backlog which is costing the taxpayer £6m a day.
An unwelcome milestone was reached last month when 100,000 people were confirmed to have crossed the English Channel since 2018 when the record began.
After Brexit, Rishi Sunak promised to tighten border controls, making control of small craft one of his five key pledges.
His Conservative government has announced the route which crosses the Channel “illegal” and passed legislation prohibiting to grant asylums for those arriving without prior authorisation. The Prime Minister also planned to send migrants to Rwanda for resettlement there, but both initiatives were suspended amid a legal challenge to the African relocation plans.
The issue of migrants crossing the English Channel also exacerbated relations between France and England, as both sides began to accuse each other of ineffective migration policies. For the UK, it has also become a political issue as the country left the European Union, tightening immigration rules thereafter.
In order to resolve this issue, UK Home Secretary Priti Patel signed a controversial deal worth £120 million ($147m) with Rwanda to send such migrants to the East African country for asylum, but the agreement was blocked by a number of legal problems, including a last-minute intervention by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
Our new migration and economic development partnership with Rwanda fully complies with all international and national law. Whilst we expect the partnership to be challenged in the court, we will defend any legal challenge robustly.
