CUTTING down on illegal immigration is a simple numbers game.
If you deport more people than you let in, eventually the numbers of illegal migrants will be reduced.
GettyWith a backlog of 120k migrants, Labour’s ‘one in, one out’ plan will not work[/caption]
ReutersSir Keir Starmer is hoping that Shabana Mahmood will be able to pull off a manoeuvre that could save his job[/caption]
While this, for most of us, is a statement of the obvious, it has clearly not been understood by any of the last few Home Secretaries.
And it certainly isn’t understood by the current Prime Minister.
In what looks like becoming one of the most difficult weeks in government for Sir Keir Starmer, he is hoping that Shabana Mahmood, his new Home Secretary, will be able to pull off a manoeuvre that could save his job.
More than 5,500 illegal migrants have arrived on our shores since Yvette Cooper, the last Home Secretary, announced a new plan to return them to France last month.
So far, not one has been sent back.
Bound to fail
But that is supposedly all about to change.
According to the Home Office, dozens of migrants will be removed this week on commercial flights from Heathrow to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.
They will each be accompanied by “escorts” from private contractors Mitie Care and Custody, and they will sit among tourists and business passengers — supposedly to keep costs down.
This is what has become known as the “one-in, one-out” scheme.
Which would be fine, except that it isn’t.
It’s very obvious that the very notion of one in, one out would only work as a deterrent if every illegal migrant was earmarked for removal.
And that is simply not what is happening.
According to the Home Office, just over 100 illegal migrants have been detained since the new deal came into force on August 6.
They have been held at the Harmondsworth immigration removal centre near Heathrow.
If all goes well, some of them will be sent back
But there’s lots of reasons why we shouldn’t get too excited about this new scheme.
First, every single illegal migrant is entitled to a legal appeal against their removal.
While the Government is promising to fast-track them, each appeal could take weeks or even months.
There is already a backlog of cases currently running at more than 120,000.
At this speed of deportation, the Home Office will be at it for years just to clear the people already here illegally — never mind those entering every single week.
Secondly, of those who are returned to France, they will each be substituted by another migrant who has been granted permission to apply for asylum legally.
So, effectively, we will be flying out illegal migrants, and flying in the same number to take their places in the queue.
It is the mathematics of Rachel Reeves, and it is bound to fail.
GettyShabana Mahmood promised to do ‘whatever it takes to secure the UK’s borders’[/caption]
Shabana Mahmood made a flashy video after her first week in charge of the Home Office in which she promised to do “whatever it takes to secure the UK’s borders”.
This scheme doesn’t even come close to doing that.
After all, why would you be discouraged from coming here illegally when there is still a very good chance that you will be allowed to stay?
And in her first week in charge, Shabana Mahmood managed to increase by five times the number of illegals actually arriving here.
Quite a feat. The Government is being very vague about what qualifies asylum seekers to gain access to Britain legally.
There will be “certain conditions”, they say, which will include having family connections and being from a country with a high asylum grant rate.
Since August 6, only a tiny fraction of migrants who entered illegally have been detained.
The scheme should be more accurately named ’55 in, one out, and then another one in again’
Mike Graham
On the balance of probability, they will still be sent to a hotel rather than a detention centre.
So, the scheme should be more accurately named “55 in, one out, and then another one in again”.
I spoke to immigration lawyer Ivon Sampson on my Talk show yesterday.
He called the one-in, one-out scheme “legally frail and practically incoherent”, which exposes the United Kingdom to “inevitable human rights litigation”.
Woefully inadequate
He predicted that the courts will certainly intervene, leaving the Government with expensive legal defeats and an illegal migrant problem that will simply get worse.
In other words, it’s dead in the water and is unlikely to even get past the first phase of the law.
If we can’t deport anyone even while replacing them with someone else, what chance do we have of clearing more than 100,000 people through a system that seems woefully inadequate to deal with a few hundred?
Once again, Sir Keir Starmer and his Cabinet have been proved to be paper tigers.
In one of his now-infamous social media posts recently, he issued these stern words: “If you come to our country illegally, you will face detention and return.
“Don’t believe me? See for yourself.”
As of yesterday, it was still 5,600 in, none out.
Welcome to Britain 2025.
Mike Graham presents Morning Glory every weekday from 6am-10am on Talk.
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