Sunak must prove he has the guts to deliver on small boats
“Britain has a proud tradition of welcoming and protecting asylum seekers but all these routes need to be safe and they need to be controlled, which getting in a rubber dinghy is not,” the home secretary told the House of Commons.
“Encouraging people to cross the channel dangerously to come here is not an act of compassion, so I will continue to do all I can
to stop these dangerous crossings.” Then he sat back down. This isn’t a typo; the home secretary in question was Sajid Javid, and the year was 2019. His statement was the first on the subject of small boats, and it took place in January, just over four years ago.
The trigger for the intervention was the news that “more than 500 migrants” had tried to cross the Channel in 2018. Luckily, the secretary of state was on the case and, the House was told, the problem would be fixed imminently. In 2021, 45,746 men, women and children reached Britain by crossing the Channel on small boats. If Javid really did all he could, it doesn’t reflect especially well on him. It also doesn’t reflect well on his successor, Priti Patel, who also railed against small boats yet was powerless to stop them.
Grant Shapps can be forgiven, as he was only in post for a week. Suella Braverman, as both the former and current holder of the post, cannot. Still, she is due to introduce the Illegal Migration Bill to the Commons tomorrow, which will aim to put an end to illegal border crossings.
According to the various briefings which have made it to the press, the plans would see people arriving via small boats being immediately deported back to a “safe third country”. Until now, asylum seekers were allowed to stay in the country while waiting for their hearing. On top of this, those getting deported would then be subject to a “lifetime ban”, meaning that they would lose the right to ever settle in Britain or gain citizenship.
Small boats have been a thorn in the party and the country’s side for too long; dealing with them compassionately and decisively would put him head and shoulders above those who came before him
The billion-dollar question, of course, is whether it will work, since everything else so far has failed. Experts do not think it will. According to the Refugee Council, the scheme is “unworkable, costly and won’t stop the boats”, and will “result in tens of thousands locked up in detention at huge cost, permanently in limbo”.
The Immigration Services Union took a similar view, calling the plan “quite confusing” and arguing that “unless we have a safe third country that isn’t Rwanda to send people to, this just doesn’t seem to be possible”. Even if it did work, their spokesperson said, asylum seekers would simply get back into lorries, as they did before the small boats crisis began.
It is a frustrating state of affairs. Rishi Sunak blindsided his critics only last month by finding a reasonable and shrewd way out of the NI Protocol crisis, proving that he is able to think deftly and intelligently when needed. The massive Tory rebellion we were told was coming has all but disappeared. It has arguably been the biggest win of his premiership so far.
On immigration, however, he remains tethered to the populist instincts of some elements of his party. What this means in practice is that he, like all his predecessors, is refusing to see what’s in front of him. To state the obvious: Britain is an English-speaking island that is close to Europe, and it offers few safe and legal routes for those who wish to seek asylum there. There are many, many English speakers in the world (no guesses as to why) and a Channel that is narrow enough to be, just about, reachable by boat. These are the facts.
It isn’t possible to magic those refugees away. They exist, and most of them settle in other countries first. The ones who do not need ways to apply for asylum in Britain, probably in France. It is something charities have been demanding for years. It may not be immediately palatable to Conservative MPs and members, but few workable solutions would be. You cannot “stop the boats” in isolation, as the past few years have shown.
Technocratic Sunak should be the perfect prime minister to deal with this. He will probably be the last Conservative in power for
a while but that doesn’t mean he cannot secure a legacy as a problem solver. Small boats have been a thorn in the party and the country’s side for too long; dealing with them compassionately and decisively would put him head and shoulders above those who came before him. Does he have the guts to do it?
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