The Small Boats Crisis Isn’t So Simple

In a recent tweet extolling his supposed success in tackling illegal migration, Sir Keir Starmer wrote, “You have every right to be angry about small boat crossings. I’m angry too. We are ramping up our efforts to smash the people smuggling gangs at source.” Unsurprisingly, this incredibly insincere and misleading statement was bombarded with negative comments.

They were mostly from Right-wingers angry about mass migration, though a significant minority were from Left-wingers angry at Starmer’s cynical attempt to appease the Right-wing. (Starmer finds himself in a pickle: much of his electoral base is pro-migration, but the voters he needs to win over generally aren’t.)

Anyway, the single most popular comment on Starmer’s tweet, as judged by the number of likes, was from the erstwhile Reform MP Rupert Lowe, who wrote, “The answer is really not complicated, Prime Minister. DEPORT THEM.”

Now, I share Lowe’s frustration at the scale of illegal migration into Britain and the way it has been handled by the last two governments (such as by housing rejected asylum seekers in hotels at taxpayer expense). I’m certainly not in the pro-migration camp. However, he’s wrong that “the answer is really not complicated”.

Asylum seekers who arrive in small boats cannot just be deported because the UK is legally obligated to consider their asylum applications. The previous Conservative government tried to get around this with the Illegal Migration Act, under which applications from individuals who passed through safe countries before arriving in the UK would be “identified for consideration of inadmissibility” (i.e., would not be considered).

However, this did not solve the problem. Why? An asylum seeker who arrives in the UK illegally can only be deported if there is a country willing to take them — and most countries simply refuse. As a report for the House of Commons Library notes, “Aside from Rwanda, no third country has agreed to accept asylum seekers from the UK in large numbers”.

In fact, out of almost 70,000 people whose applications were “identified for consideration of inadmissibility” as of November 2023, only 23 had been removed from the UK — less than 0.04%. This is not primarily because activist judges stopped their deportations or they appealed under the European Court of Human Rights. It is because no country was willing to take them.

Where does Lowe propose to deport all the illegal migrants — the Moon? The simple fact is that once someone arrives in the UK, it is very difficult to get rid of them if they don’t want to leave. Of course, some asylum seekers do leave voluntarily. But most stay. After all, they may face genuine persecution in their country of origin, they may have friends or family in the country already, and they may find opportunities in the informal economy.

Starmer’s proposal to “smash the people smuggling gangs” is just as unworkable. The source of the problem is not dastardly gangs tricking gullible people into seeking asylum in the UK. It’s many people around the world wanting to live in relatively prosperous country like the UK. Smashing the gangs is not going to change this.

Even in the most recent year, small boat arrivals accounted for much less than half of all asylum applications. Back in 2002, there were over 100,000 applications and almost none of them came from small boat arrivals. Many asylum seekers arrive in the UK through other illegal channels, such as in the backs of lorries. And others simply overstay their visas.

Something like the now-defunct Rwanda Plan is probably the best way to deal with the small boats problem (and the general issue of asylum seekers arriving through illegal channels). In any case, we shouldn’t pretend that complex problems have simple solutions.