Rescue boats would repeat Italy’s mistake
During two weeks on the south coast, I swam in the sea most days. Some days it lapped calmly at the rocks and the gentle, blue waves let off the lightest of sprays. On other days, it turned grey and rocked up and down like a funfair ride, picking up and dropping me over and over as I tussled with the water. One day, when I scrambled towards the beach, a breaker lifted me right up and smashed my legs into the rattling pebbles.
It must be true that some of the migrants attempting to cross this tempestuous Channel are desperate. Others might be better described as aspirational. Despite the dangers, the odds of making it are good – certainly better than the already favourable odds of crossing the Aegean. It might even look easy to anyone who has smuggled themselves thousands of miles already.
The truth, though, is that the Channel boats are a measure of how much harder it has become to smuggle people into the UK. Extensive security around the Eurotunnel, plus disasters like the suffocation of 39 Vietnamese migrants in a container last year, are putting people off the old routes, making a short trip on a dinghy seem like a relatively viable option. The Home Office doesn’t publish estimates, but the likelihood is that illegal migration into the UK is at lower levels than before, not higher.
There is one misguided policy option that could change that. That is the suggestion, promoted by bodies like the UNHCR, that the UK should launch a comprehensive rescue service for Channel boats, a mini-version of Italy’s efforts in the Mediterranean. Rome’s kind-heartedness created a bonanza for smugglers in Libya. Just chug out to international waters, they told their customers, and then radio the nearest rescue ship for a pickup.
A Channel crossing is nothing by comparison. No doubt the rough days are filled with terror, surging up and down on a dinghy in that chilly shipping lane, wondering whether you will be one of the unlucky few whose family get that call in the night from a stranger on a strange number. But on calm, sunny days, it feels as if anyone with a well-aimed lilo could make it over. The last thing our Government should do is encourage more people to try their luck.
Adding to the Channel’s usual traffic, the water off Weymouth is currently home to a fleet of idling cruise ships. You can see them pockmarking the horizon, apparently pootling up and down the coast every so often to keep their engines warm. It’s impossible not to think of the empty cabins and the furloughed crew all just waiting. The sheer waste of resources is appalling.