The Government have unveiled what they call a major new immigration crackdown. The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, says she is restoring control of Britain’s borders.
We’re told the system will be tougher, faster and more disciplined.I don’t believe her.
When you strip away the press releases and the political theatre, one policy stands out above the rest.
Paying failed asylum seekers up to £10,000 each, or as much as £40,000 per family, to leave the United Kingdom.
Let that sink in for a minute.
In a country where working families are squeezed by record taxes, sky-high energy bills and the cost of living, the Government’s solution to illegal immigration is to write a huge cheque.
You really couldn’t make it up.
The Home Office claims that this will save money because housing asylum seekers can cost well over £100,000 per year per family. But that completely misses the point.
Policies send signals. And what signal does this send across the world?
Simple… if you get to Britain and your claim fails, you might still walk away with tens of thousands of pounds - ten times the annual wage in many poorer countries.
That isn’t deterrence.
That’s advertising, and it’s effectively a giant billboard to the world’s people smugglers and migrant chancers.
“Come to Britain. Try your luck. Even if you fail, you might still get paid.
That is not a border policy; it is an incentive.
Now, to be fair, Mahmood has also announced tougher rhetoric in other areas. She says foreign criminals should not be able to enter the country and that those who break the rules could lose support or face removal.
Good, why wasn’t this being done before?!
On paper, that sounds sensible.
But forgive me if I don’t pop the champagne just yet, because we’ve heard this all before.
For years, governments have promised control. Promised enforcement and promised deportations.
And yet illegal migration has continued to rise to record levels, the asylum backlog has ballooned, and removal numbers remain painfully low.
One policy stands out in Labour's plan to stop the boats - and it's for all the wrong reasons - Adam Brooks
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Unless you’re a Brazilian bar worker or maybe an Albanian who has tried their luck… but for the very people the public most want removed - the Channel migrants and visa fraudsters from countries like Pakistan… deportations remain close to zero.
Words are cheap in Westminster.
Action is what matters.
And when the Prime Minister is Keir Starmer, a lifelong human-rights lawyer, many people simply do not believe that mass enforcement or large-scale deportations are ever going to happen.
The gap between their rhetoric and the reality is simply too wide.
This government has already become synonymous with over-promising and under-delivering… or let’s be honest, lying.
Take another headline policy announced this week: visa restrictions targeting countries such as Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan to stop abuse of student and work routes.
Again, it sounds tough… I initially welcomed it.
But look closer, and it quickly begins to completely fall apart.
Those countries account for a relatively small proportion of the visa system abuse.
Meanwhile, some of the biggest sources of overstaying and asylum switching are barely mentioned.
People are asking a simple question:
Why are certain countries missing from the list?
Pakistan and Nigeria immediately come to mind. That’s where the policy starts to look less like strategy and more like headline management and public relations.
Because if you really wanted to clamp down on abuse of the system, you would target the biggest sources first, not the easiest ones politically.
And this is the problem with Labour’s immigration approach so far.
Lots of announcements. Lots of speeches. Lots of carefully crafted headlines, but very little evidence that anything fundamental is actually going to change.
Britain does not need gimmicks.
It does not need pilot schemes handing out £40,000 cheques.
And it certainly does not need policies that risk turning the UK into the world’s most generous consolation prize for failed asylum claims.
What Britain needs is something far simpler, a system where if your claim fails, you leave. Immediately.
No cheques.
No incentives.
No negotiation.
Just enforcement.
Until that happens, the message to the world remains the same.
Britain is still open for a gamble.
A no-lose gamble.
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