Partnership is all about saving lives

One frustration that I heard, repeatedly, over the last year was, “When are you going to do something about those boats in the Channel?”

Peterborough is a tolerant and welcoming city. We have accepted a huge number of legal migrants, many of whom I count as friends. More than a few are now local Conservative councillors.

We have also taken our city’s share of the 185,000 refugees arriving through safe and legal routes, including those from Syria, Hong Kong, Afghanistan and Ukraine. Another 40,000 people joined those refugees through family reunion. There are a number of brilliant organisations in Peterborough who I work with supporting asylum seekers.

The UK is meeting its responsibilities, as we know first-hand. That’s why the illegal people smuggling in the English Channel is so frustrating, overwhelming our asylum system at the expense of those who arrive in the proper way.

It is costing taxpayers’ money, with £5 million a day being spent on hotel accommodation. More troubling still, it is costing lives.

The criminal gangs behind this racket are trading in misery and death. They don’t care about people drowning in the Channel or suffocating in the back of containers.

It is our moral duty to stop this evil trade. Stopping it at sea, however, is incredibly difficult under international law.

It could be stopped with ease by France. Unfortunately,

the French refuse to agree a return scheme, which would remove any incentive to make a crossing.

That leaves a lot of Labour MPs and the Archbishop of Canterbury arguing, in effect, for an open border with a ferry service. My advice to His Grace would be to talk to fewer Lambeth activists and more Peterborough residents.

We know what he is missing: every single person attempting to cross the Channel could have claimed asylum in France. They are prepared to spend thousands – and risk their own lives – because they would prefer to live in the UK.

Yes, they include people with genuine asylum claims. But all of them are acting as economic migrants. Many constituents write to me asking why many of these individuals do not claim asylum on arrival in Europe. It’s a difficult question to answer.

Instead they spend money to reach the EU, travel through France and then pay a people smuggler to reach Britain. Nothing makes them get on an ill-equipped small boat except the advantages of living here.

Many in Labour spend so much time extolling the ‘superiority’ of the EU, they can’t mentally process the facts. Their reaction to the home secretary’s announcement of a migration and economic development partnership with Rwanda is an overreaction and shows them to be out of touch with the British people.

It would be morally wrong to abandon the control of our borders. And it is morally right to act against illegal and dangerous people smuggling.

The partnership with Rwanda is about saving lives. After all, how many of those on small inflatables want to spend their savings, and risk death, only to be put on a plane to Kigali?

Not because there is anything wrong with modern Rwanda, which has utterly transformed since the 1990s. But because there’s no economic advantage to being in Rwanda over France – or over entry points into Europe, like Italy or Greece.

If we can defeat the challenges from left-wing lawyers, and get this Rwandan scheme running, it will deter dangerous crossings. Lives will be saved. Criminal gangs will be broken.

The government is doing something – the right thing.

Photo: PA Images