As “Smash the Gangs” becomes “Smash the Records” and the small boats crisis intensifies, increasingly desperate claims are being made by Labour politicians who were quick to blame others.
They won’t say it publicly, not yet anyhow, but many Labour MPs are nervously wondering exactly how high the small boat numbers will go and when they will smash through the record 50,000-plus mark.The official Government line: we must wait until new law enforcement powers are enacted to see small boat numbers start dropping, is a statement of blind hope, not serious analysis.
As taxpayers see the costs of failure, including a £4.7billion annual migrant hotel bill, even the most loyal backbencher will now be privately questioning why Labour wasted their final years in opposition coming up with an empty slogan, rather than an overall strategy.
Especially when combined with Keir Starmer’s now desperate search for a nation prepared to host a UK “migrant hub”, having dumped Rwanda on Day 1.
It's easy to see panic below the surface when the political blame game begins above it: the Weather, Tories, Nigel, Boris, and the next straw to be clutched at? The old favourite: Brexit.
The Dublin small boats 'solution' is a fantasy - and Labour are very worried you'll find out - Kevin FosterGetty Images
As predictable as the sun coming up tomorrow, die-hard democracy deniers are now trying to suggest that if we were still in the EU, the small boats problem would instantly be fixed.
The EU’s Dublin Regulations would, like a white knight, have ridden to Britannia’s rescue, forcing the French to stop the Boats and take migrants back. Yet like all good fairy tales, this claim belongs in the land of make-believe.
The Dublin Regulations set out:
1. Criteria for determining which EU Member State is responsible for processing an asylum application, including family ties, visa or residence permit history, and the manner of entry into the EU2. Transfers to other countries, so if an asylum seeker applies in the wrong country, they can be transferred to the responsible member state.
If this all sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is!
In theory, the Dublin Regulation would mean a migrant crossing the Mediterranean would claim asylum in Italy, wait for a decision there, and only if granted, move on within the Schengen Area.
Many dodge making claims on arrival, head across Europe’s borderless zone to their preferred country, then make a claim.
Then there is the need for an EU country to accept the transfer from another member state. It will surprise no one familiar with basic geography to hear that most return requests go to border countries, like Bulgaria, Spain, Croatia, Italy, and Greece, who have the option to ignore or refuse the request. The vast majority are not being accepted.
This means that in the final three years, the UK was part of the Dublin Agreements, transfer numbers were small and mostly to, not from, the UK:
20181,215 transfers into the UK
209 transfers out of the UK
2019
714 transfers into the UK
263 transfers out of the UK
2020
882 transfers into the UK
105 transfers out of the UK
During this time, small boat arrivals started to climb, from 297 in 2018 to around 7,500 in 2020, as people smugglers switched from using trucks to boats.
The Dublin Agreement did not and would not force France to “stop the boats” or even to take back any significant numbers of those who arrive in them.
Only in the minds of those looking for any excuse to rejoin the EU is the Dublin Agreement a solution to the small boats crisis.
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