UK Has Lost Control of its Borders, Says Home Secretary
The UK has lost control of its borders, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has said, as she calls for “international cooperation” in a tacit admission that Britain has surrendered its sovereignty to foreign courts and treaties. The Telegraph has more.
Shabana Mahmood will say on Wednesday that Britain’s failure to control its borders is eroding trust in politicians and the credibility of the state.
At a summit with Balkan interior ministers in London, the Home Secretary will issue one of the frankest assessments yet of the risks the Government is running if it fails to get a grip on the migration crisis.
She will say that only through international co-operation can countries secure their borders.
In 2024 alone, almost 22,000 people were smuggled along routes through the Western Balkans, while 35,500 migrants have crossed the Channel in small boats this year, up 30% on last year.
Her forthright approach comes as Labour seeks harder-edged policies restricting rights for migrants in an attempt to reverse Reform’s surge in popularity.
“The public rightly expect that their Government will be able to determine who enters their country and who must leave,” she will say.
“Today, in this country, and I know in many if not all of yours, that is not the case. And the failure to bring order to our borders is eroding trust not just in us as political leaders… but in the credibility of the state itself.”
In an implicit critique of Nigel Farage, the Reform leader, she will say that illegal migration requires a “strong, joined-up international response”, which she has previously warned could be undermined by Tory and Reform plans to quit the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
“To those who think the answer to the challenges that we face is to turn inwards, or back away from international co-operation, I say that in coming together as we are today, we will make all of our borders and our countries stronger,” she will say.
“I am proud that the UK is leading the charge on a co-ordinated response to tackle organised crime and take down the vile people-smuggling gangs who put the value of human lives behind their own profits.”
Home Office sources cited examples including Labour’s one in, one out deal with France, a bilateral agreement with Germany to prosecute smugglers and seize their boats, an EU reset giving the UK access to key intelligence, and a border security pact with Iraq.
But Mr Farage hit back, saying: “These words are meaningless while the pull factors to the UK remain.” …
Chris Philp, the Shadow Home Secretary, branded Ms Mahmood’s words “rich coming from a Government that has lost control of our borders”.
He said: “The first nine months of this year have been the worst in history for illegal immigrants crossing the Channel.
“The Government is accommodating more illegal immigrants in hotels than at the election, and has only returned a paltry 26 to France over a time period when 14,000 have arrived. This is clearly no deterrent.
“The Conservatives would leave the ECHR, which will enable us to remove all illegal immigrants within a week of arrival. Then the crossings would soon stop.”
Worth reading in full.
One commenter under the Telegraph article notes:
We have a Home Secretary who [in 2020] signed a letter opposing the deportation of foreign criminals including child rapists, a Foreign Secretary who posed for a photo waving a far Left ”[Refugees] Welcome’ placard and a Prime Minister who was a human rights lawyer who fought for the right of foreign criminals to remain in the UK.
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Sheep eat grass, says farmer.
Fascinating.
Isn’t it interesting that when a white English person says exactly the same thing then they’re racist, far-right, Nazis, but when Shabana Mahmood says it it’s fine. I wonder why that is?
And pigs fly, apparently. And politicians lie, apparently.
Eek. Pigs, Muslims. Bigot islamophobe.
How degrading for her to admit that she can’t do your own job!
And as for “eroding trust not just in us as political leaders… but in the credibility of the state itself”….LONG SINCE ERODED would be a more accurate description!
I can’t imagine Mr Trump’s solution would be to become more enmeshed with supranational organisations.
OT, I know, but our delusional prime minister (I think it is safe to call him that, after the US ambassador to Israel coined the phrase), says he will call on our experience in Northern Ireland to assist the peace process. So, Hamas will be free to bury all of their weapons in underground staches and will get letters indemnifying them from anything they did, and Starmer will use every international court to pursue IDF soldiers for every action they took. If I was the Israelis, I would tell him to take a long jump off the shortest pier into the Mediterranean.
I recall that in the last “serious” attempt at the fabled Two State Solution under the auspices of Bill Clinton, various individuals from the NI peace process – both sides of the divide – were dispatched to engage with Yasser Arafat and the PLO to share their experiences and advise on how to go about it. I think representatives from the ANC also went to give their experience in peaceful transition from White to Black rule in RSA.
How well did that work? Bill Clinton who invested a great deal of time and effort, in the end concluded the Palestinians just didn’t want a solution that included the continued existence of Israel.
The detail that some seem unable/unwilling to grasp, is the Palestinians do not want a Two State Solution, “Palestinian State” to them means from the River to the Sea, the territory now the State of Israel minus its Jews.
It is why the PLO has refused to create a State on the West Bank, instead keeping its inhabitants as refugees waiting to return to their homeland, and Hamas chose to wage war against Israel fir 20 years instead of turning Gaza into a peaceful, stable, prosperous proto-State.
If we’re ‘off-topicing’, here’s another, though this whole immigration thing is a topic that Peter Whittle has spoken out about many a-time. Here he is taking a few minutes to give a statement about his health. He’s got stage 4 oesophageal cancer. Very saddened to hear this as he is a genuine patriot;
”A personal health statement from Peter Whittle (@prwhittle), founder & director of the New Culture Forum.”
https://x.com/NewCultureForum/status/1978160188432502840
I saw this last night. Very sad indeed. Best wishes to Peter Whittle.
The Med? Could we make it into the Arctic Ocean, please? He could have an environmentally friendly, oil free, sustainable lifejacket.
He thinks “he feels the hand of history on his shoulder”. But it’s actually Tiny Blair p1$$1ng down his leg.
No the globalist, anti white governments that have been in charge for decades have been in complete control of the gates, making sure they are firmly open to all comers
Correct and equally if our governments had wanted to shut the borders it could have done so and in less than 24 hours.
The Australians managed it.
They had geographic isolation on their side.
Australia is 31 times the size of the UK, extremely sparsely populated and mostly desert. This means people in boats can’t just make landfall anywhere at the cost and proceed from there as they’ll end up succumbing to thirst and hunger long before they reach anything. Because of this, controlling usuable approaches is very likely easier. Regardless of that, I think the main Australian trick is to move people who arrived to a not-so-pleasant claims processing facility outside of Australia.
This approach could be copied in the UK by creating makeshift barracks on moorland and keeping supposed refugees their on a sparse diet until their claims have been processed which would then either lead to deportation or them being allowed to leave the facility. But I don’t think a government putting
them into ordinary hotels instead would ever do that.
Indeed. It may have been easy logistically for Australia, but the main difference was the willingness to get tough.
Apparently these ‘geniuses’ who love us so much, can shut down the entire country in 24 hours, over a plandemic-scamdemic, and completely regulate every aspect of our existence, but don’t have the ‘resources’ or time to close the borders and deport about 20 millions.
Passing the buck as usual. The UK Government is responsible for our borders, not the international community. Whatever that may be.
Exactly. They are trying to use the 🐂💩 argument of push factors for illegal migrants, war, famine climate change and totally refusing to accept that the UK almost uniquely offers such generous pull factors. War no doubt accounts for all of the illegals from India, Vietnam and other safe countries. The sub Sahara is increasingly greening, so should be more productive reducing famine. Countries have yet to drown, but it’s still good to hear our amazing Government push the lies.
The main push factor is that most countries in the world are shit compared to the UK, at least in the eyes of the people that want to come here
If we need cooperation from other countries we have not got control. We cannot have access decided by other countries.
Not the “UK” – it’s Government – Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem.
Not “lost” control, abdicated their responsibility and duty to control – deliberate.
With the willing collaboration of the blob and in particular doubtless the muslim 5th column inside the civil service.
I use the word collaborator deliberately. the French know how to deal with them.
No need to worry, the ones in the pictures, welcoming the helpless little ducklings on the dinghies, will be overruled by Ms Mahmood and Lord Ali, both devout Muslims.
Recipe for losing control of your borders. Step 1 appoint saboteurs to all senior positions. Step 2 – no step 2 is necessary.
They didn’t wait for international agreement before introducing Net Zero unilaterally to set an example.
What a WOLF-IN-SHEEP’S-CLOTHING this Pakistani Muslim woman Mahmood is! “On her own website in January 2017, she described her ‘long-standing work supporting vulnerable refugees’. [Including 40-year-old Muslim men claiming to be children] “Here is the letter she wrote to the then Minister for Children and Families, Edward Timpson, in 2017, which appeared on Facebook on 19th January 2017: “Dear Edward Timpson MP, I am writing to ask the Government to take further action in relation to unaccompanied child refugees. In 2015 88,000 unaccompanied children applied for asylum in the EU; over 3,000 of these applications were made in the UK. These children are hugely vulnerable to the actions of smugglers and human traffickers and I am deeply concerned that their wellbeing is not being sufficiently protected by the current legislative framework. I would like the Minister to consider the following two proposals to help protect unaccompanied child refugees. 1. Appointing INDEPENDENT GUARDIANS for all unaccompanied migrant children. These guardians should be independent, have statuary powers and be able to work across all areas that affect an unaccompanied child’s life. I do not believe the current framework of social workers, Independent Reviewing Officers and representatives from the Refugee Council’s children… Read more »
Excellent expose´, but the sad reality is that the next PM will be either Mahmood 4/2 or Nige Yusuf 6/2. Any bets?
I hope not.
Yet more lies because of course we haven’t lost control of our borders we have abandoned our borders so that any bloody Amir, Aswell, Ashim, can invade and be rewarded for doing so.
Sorry, our Superhero Border Force is currently busy frustrating British passport holders from getting home after their hols.
My assumption is that this plea is just a self-serving Labour attempt to blunt the Reform surge. Nothing to do with immigration at all.
I’m surprised she didn’t directly blame Farage and start talking about “Brexit boats”, Ed Davey used this term (or it might of been Farage boats) at least 15 times in his speech to the Lib Dem conference. Obviously the number of people arriving in small boats has increased massively since we left the EU, this alone is enough of a reason for remoaners to blame Brexit. Obviously they ignore the fact that 5 years ago most migrants arrived in the back of lorries, the luggage hold of coaches etc. Some people claim that if only we were still part of the EU we could use the Dublin Agreement to send migrants back to the first EU country they entered. What these people don’t realise is that under the Dublin Agreement only 7% of migrants were sent to another EU country. One reason is that the Dublin Agreement only means we were able to ask other EU countries to take back migrants, there was no legally enforceable way of ensuring that these countries actually took them back. Also if someone doesn’t say which was the first EU country they entered then which country could we of asked to take them back?… Read more »
‘Legal’ immigration – the 2 million of Africans, Muslims, Hindus and Chinese every year is the issue.
Small boats are 5-10% of the problem.
Great photo, bringing new meaning to the term “Skeletal Smile”.
“The UK has lost control of its borders, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has said.”
Funnily enough, Mr Farage has been saying this for about 20 years and he’s considered a racist for it.
Presumably it won’t be long before some people start calling Mahmood a coconut or race traitor, just as they did with Pritti Patel and other people of colour who don’t share their views on immigration, systemic racism etc.
If countries cannot police their own borders, cooperating with other countries to reduce the number of illegal immigrants to the UK is obviously futile as this would require these other countries to policei their own borders which they cannot do if it can’t be done.
And here we have a clear leader for the 2025 ‘No Shit, Sherlock Award’. Has this dumb woman just got back from Mars or something to come out with a statement tens of millions of people has known was the case for years. Realisation – stop laughing at the back – of a problem does not necessarily mean solving it, especially with Two Tier’s Students in charge. The ‘smash the gangs’ crap which they have gone all quiet on except for when GB News puts a clip collection of them all spouting it, was never possible as a UK only thing since the gangs start out from whichever Turd World shithole these scum come from, and then pass through their mates along the way to The Channel. A tiny step forward in trying to get cooperation from the Balkan state BUT you will notice there is no mention of any action to deter them from setting off to get a bed in a 4 star hotel, gym membership, free health care, Sky tv etc paid for by us saps, the taxpayers. Every illegal arrival should be sent to the detention centre – Falklands being my preference – for the rest… Read more »
Maybe this comment will get buried amongst the nearly forty responses, but hopefully somewhere here has an informed answer.
Simple question – where do these migrants and “refugees” find the means to pay the ferrymen?
Clearly the gangs operating the illegal boat crossing are not well-known for their charitable activities. Migrants certainly can and do travel around mainland Europe without tickets or payment and most likely steal to “make ends meet”. But when it comes to crossing the Channel they need funds – and lots of funds.
So when they make landfall or are rescued in British waters, how does it appear that they are penniless, without a sou or a Euro cent? So poor indeed that they contribute nothing to their accommodation, welfare, living costs (all from the British taxpayer), even granted state-funded legal aid to resist deportation (if and when).
A good example of that would be the recent case of the supposed Afghan child refugee who got granted refugee status and then proceeded to fetch his whole extended family from Turkey. In my opinion, this was a planned move from the start and the ferrymen got paid by the family before the young man ever started his journey. I also think that, despite they’re now all offically living on British benefits, they have certainly some wealth stashed away somewhere outside of the reach of British authorities, especially considering that violent family disputes (the supposed reason for granting refugee status to them) sound a lot like organized crime to me.
Such cases are known to occur in Germany because German authorities simply don’t care unless someone is really seriously overdoing this (just owning a bunch of open displayed luxury cars will pass officially unnoticed for a long time) and the same is probably also true in Britain.
Indeed RW. To me it is fairly obvious the true driver behind all this ‘migration’ is organised crime groups working very well together to insert people into the welfare system with the aim of siphoning off government (tax payers) money. Swamping the system so we basically just have no choice but to give in and hand out as much money as they demand.
All this nonsense about illegal working in the ‘gig’ employment etc is just a nonsense and a cover for what is really going on.
The Swedish model is an example of how this is being done. And not new here at all either, other groups have been doing this for a number of years now. The Muslims (of course), the Somalians, the Balkans..
They see a ‘soft’ target and go for it like circling wolves waiting to tear this soft fat county to shreds as we sit back on our laurels as the government fleeces us to keep paying them off.
Thank you, RW. Certainly that method has been used by journalists trying to “sting” the ferrymen – payment to the gang from a “family member” based in the UK. Where such payments are made “externally”, it demonstrates that the immigrants are unlikely to be refugees escaping persecution, but part of a system designed to bring them to Britain to “milk” our generosity (as Ralph says) and to undermine our society.
Another politician talking the talk (sort of) in order to not walk the walk. No one in power in western europe has the slightest intention of doing anything about mass immigration until the historic population of these countries are out-numbered by non-Europeans. Why? To destroy the nation states of Europe (pretty much the only ones that count for anything except a few in the far east) to make way for unaccountable global government.
Those virtue signallers in the photographs should learn the difference between refugees and illegal immigrants who, I always argue, because of their illegal status, have no locus standi before our courts. They are not entitled to due process because they are not citizens but enemy aliens and should simply be returned whence they came immediately.
No, we haven’t “lost control” of our borders.
Successive British Governments gave control away and the current one (like the last) refuses to take it back.
Wait a minute, did the Home Secretary just work out the immigration situation? Oh Britain, you are in trouble.
They didnt lose control they gave it away willingly.