The UK's offering shelter to terrorists. It's time to put Britons' interests first, says Darren Grimes
PA
In 2017 twenty-two people were killed by an Islamist extremist at the Manchester Arena after an Ariana Grande concert; over one thousand were injured, and many still live with the scars of psychological trauma inflicted upon them in the aftermath of this sickening attack.
The shrapnel-loaded bomb, assembled by its twisted maker at home, claimed its youngest victim at just eight years of age, the beautiful little girl Saffie Rose Roussos.
The bomber's father was in a Libyan jihadist group that opposed Colonel Gaddafi. The United Kingdom offered the family of the man who would become a child-killing psychopath, Salman Abedi, sanctuary here in our country.
I don't know about you, but I don't believe our nation has to take in Islamist fundamentalist groups that have fallen out with their leader back home.
We now know that there were failings in the security services, the emergency response and the safety protocols followed at the arena. Two sources told journalists that MI5 received intelligence months before the 2017 murders that linked Abedi to a bomb plot. The then government refused to confirm or deny the allegations against our security agency.
To me, this makes it all the more shocking that there is precious little attention paid or alarm bells rang as tens of thousands of primarily young men cross the English Channel to reach our shores.
If British intelligence cannot prevent the bombing of an Ariana Grande concert, the direct targeting of a show attended by little girls by some fundamentalists scumbag, how on earth can we expect them to gather intelligence about those arriving here that we know next to nothing about?
Where is our lawmakers' warning of such an atrocity being committed here at home again? The Daily Mail reported today that nineteen suspected terrorists have arrived in Britain via small boats across the channel. They're the ones that the security forces have reportedly identified. Many have requested asylum, and guess what, dear reader? You guessed it! Soft touch Britain cannot deport them thanks partially to human rights legislation.
I don't know about you, but I couldn't give a flying fig about respecting the human rights of any foreign national linked with the medieval death cult Islamic State nutters. The protection of the British people ought to come before the sheltering of those harbouring views that run contrary to British values.
The Mail tells us this morning that nineteen men are now housed in hotels paid for by you, the Great British taxpayer. Seven men are understood to have already been placed under 'active investigation' abroad before washing up on our beaches.
The willing admittance of these men in Britain means that the security services have to ramp up their monitoring apparatus, placing a burden on the taxpayer not just to give these illegal entrants both bed and board but also to ensure they don't get up to the kind of evil that took place in Manchester.
Shame on all of those politicians that tell us that any concerns such as these are down to being bigoted or, as crisp salesman Gary Lineker seemed to suggest, equivalent to the rhetoric of Nazi Germany.
Our security services, as I have already set out, struggle enough as it is with those already here presenting terrorist threats; why on earth are we willingly allowing the illegal import of friends and colleagues to join them? It is now undeniable that far from the burden to the taxpayer of these arrivals and the burden of the need for translators and hotels, the threat to our national security is a real risk of these illegal crossings.
The day and night monitoring of one suspect reportedly requires a team of 20 to 25 armed officers who work out to about £2 million a year. We could save ourselves a pretty penny if we stopped being so lackadaisical about securing our country.
We already know that Border Force, also known as the migrant ferry service, has predicted an influx from 45,000 last year to 80,000 arrivals this year. How could we possibly monitor each of these potential risks?
It is about time that our politicians placed the interests of our people first, and I'm afraid I have precious little time in the argument that Britain must be the end destination of everybody around the globe that wants to come here as we struggle to house, heal, educate and provide for our own people.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has shown she has much in the way of grit and a determination to take on a lefty media blob that will no doubt get its knickers in a twist over opinion pieces like this one. Still, both Braverman and Rishi Sunak should realise that this issue presents many more risks than the obvious facing them at the next election if inaction is their only response.