DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Labour’s plan to curb migration will not halt boats
Labour won power after convincing the British public that it had a bulletproof plan to ‘smash the trafficking gangs’.
Yet in the six weeks since, nearly 6,000 illegal migrants have slipped across the Channel in small boats, bringing the total this year to 19,294, with no sign of waning.
So with bated breath we awaited the first stage of Home Secretary Yvette Cooper‘s blueprint.
Sadly, her announcement yesterday amounted to little more than spin and hot air.
The centrepiece was a crackdown on foreigners unlawfully working and living in the UK, and the building sites, cleaning firms and food outlets that hire them.
Nearly 6,000 illegal migrants have slipped across the Channel in small boats in the last six weeks, bringing the total this year to 19,294
Yvette Cooper’s centrepiece was a crackdown on foreigners unlawfully working and living in the UK, and the building sites, cleaning firms and food outlets that hire them
Yes, many will welcome Ms Cooper’s vow to tackle illegal workers and fine or close their employers’ businesses. But forgive the Mail’s cynicism.
Does she seriously believe this will get on top of the migration crisis – rated voters’ biggest concern in a poll last week?
Bitter experience tells us that an illegal worker in this country has got almost as much chance of winning the Lottery as of being detected, detained and removed.
Threatening to shut the odd takeaway may not be as effective in deterring would-be Channel migrants as the Home Office hopes.
Meanwhile, the Government’s pledge to boost the number of failed asylum seekers deported to the ‘highest level since 2018’ quickly descended into farce.
To its embarrassment, it emerged that this target had already been hit by the Tories.
Having scrapped the Rwanda scheme without any alternative deterrent, Labour is giving the impression it is largely indifferent towards the small boats.
That is simply not good enough. The public expects the party to solve this problem. It’s all very well for ministers to talk tough about illegal migrants already in Britain. But wouldn’t it be better to stop them arriving here in the first place?
Foreign aid farce
Instead of raising taxes to plug the black hole she claims to have found in Britain’s finances, couldn’t Rachel Reeves end the £15 billion-a-year foreign aid madness?
As the Mail reveals today, development cash is being squandered on vanity projects in areas of the world that are wealthier than disadvantaged parts of our own country.
China is an economic leviathan with a space programme. So what possible justification is there for the Government to hand it wads of taxpayers’ money to pay for all-female operas and cycle lanes?
Our mandarins say this is diplomatic ‘soft’ power, which helps further our interests abroad. But China routinely spies on us and treats our nation with contempt.
If Britain’s economic picture is really as dire as the Chancellor insists, she should bring an end to such mindless largesse.
If Britain’s economic picture is really as dire as the Chancellor (pictured) insists, she should bring an end to such mindless largesse
In thrall to unions
Transport Secretary Louise Haigh couldn’t have looked smugger when claiming she’d ended the crippling rail strikes by handing train drivers a hefty 14 per cent pay rise.
She’d succeeded, she bragged, where the Tories had failed.
But anybody with knowledge of industrial relations could have predicted it would encourage other public sector unions to demand the same generosity. And so it has.
The militant RMT yesterday insisted on a ‘parallel’ pay hike for its rail workers.
The unions make up a third of places on Labour’s governing body. Ministers are dancing to their tune. And who pays the price? As ever, the long-suffering taxpayer.
