Britain’s borders are as leaky as a sieve – Starmer’s finished and Farage will be next PM
Labour’s pledge to stop the boats is in tatters as huge numbers storm into Britain and one man is set to gain from the border security nightmare.
Labour’s plan to ‘stop the boats’ has failed (Image: Getty)
Honesty is not a word often associated with Labour. So it was something of a surprise when Defence Secretary John Healey had the good grace to admit what we all know: Britain had lost control of her borders.
Here was a politician giving a straight and honest assessment. Of sorts
To be honest he could do little else: His statement in June was confirmation of what we have known and have seen – both literally with our own eyes and figuratively in official data – for years. Britain’s borders are as leaky as a sieve.
But he quickly reverted to type, blaming the current mess on the previous government, saying the current (and worsening crisis) was the result of an asylum system left in chaos.
While it is true the cross-Channel illegal national emergency is not solely of this government’s making it is also true it has utterly failed to address it.
At least 37,000 have successfully crossed this year already (and remember these are only the ones who have been helped ashore and held). It remains highly possible the all-time record of 45,755 set in 2022 will now be surpassed.
But for Mr Healey’s welcome assessment let us not forget he campaigned on a Labour manifesto pledge to scrap the Conservative’s Rwanda deportation scheme – a plan dismissed as a “gimmick” by Sir Keir Starmer.
This government has no clue – least of all any backbone – to get a grip on a crisis that will almost certainly cost it the next election.
Polling suggests Mr Farage is almost certain to be the next prime minister (Image: Getty)
One month after Mr Healey made his remark the Prime Minister promised to “stop the boats” by detering thousands crossing from Europe through a one in one out deal with France.
That policy, if indeed that is what you can call it, is now totally discredited, not least because it took three months for the Home Office to deport the first migrant.
More to the point there is nothing to stop those removed from Britain trying again. And again. And again.
As if to illustrate that point in one appalling recent example an Iranian migrant who arrived here on a small boat on August 6, only to be removed under the “one in, one out” scheme on September 19, returned just days later.
His mitigation? He claimed to have been a victim of modern slavery at the hands of smuggling gangs in France.
And so the carousel and ineptitude, incompetence, and political impotence continues.
It is almost singularly why Reform UK is surging in the polls.
People often forget Nigel Farage is years ahead on this issue and in 2014 gave a grim foreboding of what Britain would become if we failed to stop the problem at source. Many would say we’re now there.
More than a decade ago, in a fearful apprehension, he warned: “As a small country we simply cannot accommodate the hundreds of thousands who may look to Britain as an opportunity for a more comfortable life. The result will be so much pressure on public services, employment, housing and education that the quality of living in the UK drops for all.
“I suffered, and still do suffer, from unjustified and unpleasant attacks from people in the political classes who want to shut the debate down. We need to talk about these issues to prevent social discord.
“In order to detoxify the topic we need to look at numbers. We need to address the issue politically and realistically.”
While the Conservative’s Rwanda scheme failed to take off, quite literally, the truth is Labour has not stopped the boats, it has welcomed them.
The Government’s failure has led to predictable finger pointing with Sir Keir reduced to labelling Nigel Farage’s plans to scrap indefinite leave to remain as “racist” and “immoral”.
Mr Farage, now almost certainly prime minister in waiting, is poised to remove hundreds of thousands of people who are in Britain legally.
But when all before have failed on an issue as critical as border and national security, is it any wonder illegal immigration could be Reform’s pathway to power?
