UK’S OPEN COASTLINE SHAMBLES: 4 MISSED WARNINGS
Ministers’ ‘staggering complacency’
MINISTERS were last night accused of ‘staggering complacency’ for ignoring a string of warnings that Britain’s small ports are an easy target for people smugglers.
Four reports, the most recent last week, have sounded the alarm over lax border controls. But the Government claimed the threat was ‘not currently assessed as being significant’.
As evidence grew of smugglers repeatedly targeting small harbours, there are fears Britain’s soft underbelly has been left exposed. Meanwhile it was revealed that:
A Navy warship could be sent to the Channel to pick up migrants;
Two British men appeared in court over Sunday’s bid to bring 18 Albanians into Dymchurch, Kent;
Residents in the village revealed photos of a boat used in an earlier – apparently successful – attempt to smuggle migrants ashore;
Border guards warned of an unprecedented number of small craft smuggling in migrants;
Several experts warned the scenes in the Mediterranean, where thousands of migrants have died, could be repeated in the Channel;
New powers are being
introduced today to crack down on the people smugglers.
Concerns about the vulnerability of Britain’s coastline were raised in two reports in 2010 and 2011 by John Vine, the then independent inspector of borders. Both found small ports were at risk from people smuggling.
Then in January, Chief Inspector of Borders David Bolt highlighted how a large number of small boats arrive each year from outside the EU with no checks made by border guards.
His damning report said: ‘Border Force recognised that its knowledge of the threats and risks associated with GM [general maritime – or small boats] was poor and needed to improve.’
Reacting at the time, the Government said: ‘The risk of people smuggling into the UK via GA/GM [general aviation/general maritime] is not currently assessed as being significant.’ Mr Bolt’s warning was repeated in his annual report for ministers, published last week.
As far back as 2008 Lord Carlile, the then independent reviewer of terror laws, raised concerns about small aircraft which fly in and out of British airspace every day.
The Home Office insisted last night it ‘remained vigilant’ to changes and pledged to ‘strengthen our response should the risk picture change’.
But yesterday Mr Vine accused ministers of ignoring warnings about the threat. He warned lives would be lost unless more resources were ploughed in to stop migrants trying to reach the UK on boats. Mr Vine said he found the issue ‘wasn’t a major priority’ when he raised concerns in the past.
Dorset Police and Crime Commissioner Martyn Underhill said: ‘You’re only as strong as your weakest link and at the moment the weakest link is our ports.’
Lucy Moreton, general secretary of the Immigration Services Union, said large stretches of Britain’s coastline were left unpoliced. Officials simply did not know how many people had sneaked in undetected. Britain has only three Border Force vessels to patrol more than 7,000 miles of coastline.
Labour MP Keith Vaz, chairman of the Commons home affairs select committee, said: ‘The Home Office has repeatedly been warned about the vulnerabilities of our small ports and airports yet it is still a problem. This is staggering complacency.’ Former immigration minister Damian Green told Channel 4 News: ‘People may die. I think it’s as serious as that.’
Chris Hobbs, a former Scotland Yard border control officer, said: ‘It could be that we get similar scenes to such that we’ve seen in the Mediterranean.’
Last month the National Crime Agency warned that people smugglers are targeting smaller ports and stretches of beach in Kent and Sussex.
Home Secretary Theresa May has been told that organised criminals are already exploiting gaps in the largely unprotected eastern coastline using private boats to smuggle in illegal drugs, migrants and weapons. She has ordered a shake-up of Britain’s coastal defences. The Border Force replaced the UK Border Agency, which was scrapped in 2013 after a string of failures. It emerged that the Border Force’s budget has been slashed by nearly £50million in just three years – from £604million for 2013-14 to £558million this year – and that it is now using civilian volunteers as its eyes and ears.
The Home Office said it treated national security as a priority, with its Border Force vessels using intelligence to intercept any suspicious craft. It said it would deploy a new fleet of rigid-hulled inflatable patrol boats in the coming months to crack down on people traffickers.
HOW much more evidence does the Government need that Britain’s border security is a shambles before deciding to do something about it? There have been no fewer than four official warnings since 2010 that small ports and airports around the country are an open door to illegal migrants, terrorists and criminals.
While officials have been concentrating on stopping migrants coming through Calais on lorries, ferries and trains, countless minor harbours, airfields and marinas have been virtually unpoliced.
This year alone, the Chief Immigration Inspector David Bolt said checks at these points were rare, risk assessment was poor and there was ‘ no systematic collection of information’.
The police had earlier expressed ‘ real anxiety’ about the terror threat and Lord Carlile – former independent reviewer of terror legislation – spoke of ‘ a crack in national security’.
Yet with breathtaking complacency, the Home Office insisted the risk was ‘ not currently assessed as being significant’.
How ridiculous that assessment has been made to look in the last week, with boatloads of migrants rescued off the Kent and Sussex coast and Calais’s chief coastguard saying the Channel was fast becoming ‘the new Mediterranean’.
Meanwhile, it was revealed that the Border Force has just three boats to patrol 7,700 miles of coastline. Amid the furore, the Navy has now offered to deploy a warship in the Channel, though quite how that would help remains unclear. It smacks of gesture politics. As the Mail reported yesterday, immigrants have been arrested recently at several small coastal towns from East Anglia to Devon. Who knows how many more sneaked in undetected and what their motives were for coming here?
It’s the first responsibility of any government to ensure the safety of its people, which includes careful monitoring of who comes in and out of the country. As the referendum campaign has shown, migration is voters’ number one concern.
A cavalier approach to border control will do nothing to allay their fears.