Until root causes are addressed, migration is a real threat to Western democracies.
Every developed country in the world seeks to control its borders and the flow of migrants. The forced displacement of people creates a huge global humanitarian problem. For many countries welcome immigrants bring not just much needed skills and labour, but also a diversity with so many associated benefits. However, illegal immigration where genuine asylum seekers mix with illegal economic migrants presents enormous logistical and moral challenges.
In democracies like the UK, and across Europe, the immigration issue is used and abused to arouse emotions, distract from bigger issues, and influence the electorate. All normal in a Democratic world, but not so useful if people suffer as a result and a global problem requiring a common international solution is festering and growing out of control. It is easy too for “humanitarian” charities and other groups to point to suffering refugee women and children to allege cruelty and immorality, and to characterise all asylum seekers in a single category. In fact, most democratic governments would ideally like to help and accommodate all suffering people but sadly cannot, largely as the cost and other repercussions fall on their own indigenous population. There is of course legal immigration into all countries and that too raises huge issues. A context is needed.
WHO DOES WHAT TO WHOM?
Those Afghan people who are not Taliban supporters find themselves in a perilous and poverty-stricken situation. Leaving aside who has caused what, they are migrants in great numbers today to Europe, and increasingly to the UK from Europe. Syrians have for so many years been made refugees in vast numbers. Turkey is housing, in camps mostly, at least 3.5million Syrians out of a total of 4 million refugees. Other countries neighbouring Syria also have millions. European nations have taken some, but the EU pays Turkey billions of Euros not to let the 4 million people flood into Europe. Mostly, given their origins, these will be genuine asylum seekers afraid for their lives if they return. Iraq has been a similar source of refugees in large numbers. There are millions too from the Yemen and Somalia. There were in mid 2022 some 32.5 million refugees worldwide, and some 53 million internally misplaced people. By mid 2022 some 20% of refugees were in Europe, when 10% is more the norm, the increase caused largely by the 6+million Ukrainian refugees whose departure was caused by Putin’s barbaric invasion and behaviour. The thorny issue of small boat illegal migrants attracts the most attention in the UK, and a lot in Europe, but it is just one aspect, to be kept in perspective, and is touched on below.
It is notable that most of the refugees referred to above are the victims of violent conflicts, largely at the hands of cruel autocratic rulers or murderers in the name of some cause or other.
As to “normal” migration: taking the UK, in 2022 there were some 1.2 million long-term immigrants to the UK, legally, this figure being swollen by Ukrainians and those given safety from Hong Kong. India is the largest source of immigrants with visas. It is an interesting comparison that for the same year the USA, with a population some 5 or 6 times that of the UK, took about 1.5 million migrants. European countries such as Germany welcomed large numbers too. Developed countries encourage legal immigration to the extent it helps them fill labour shortages, compensates for dwindling birth rates, satisfies family connections of its citizens, and other good reasons. Legal visa processes exist for granting entry permission. Of course, where developed countries encourage the educated classes to migrate from less developed countries, they are depriving those countries of educated and skilled people who are much needed locally to develop local economies, which is a moral issue rarely highlighted.
WHY THE IMMIGRATION PROBLEM IS SO STICKY
Developed countries are by international law obliged to consider asylum applications, and to provide accommodation for asylum seekers. Many countries including the UK are generous in their receipt of genuine cases, but equally many countries including the UK struggle to look after the sheer volume of people and face a large backlog of applications (about 175,000 in the UK). Many countries resort to camps. France for example is reported to be able to provide accommodation to only one third of asylum seekers. The UK in its struggle, having exhausted expensive hotel accommodation, is looking at disused military camps, and the experimental barges receiving so much publicity, to house illegal immigrants. In addition to asylum seekers illegal migrants include large numbers who are economic migrants, not fleeing from terror, but simply seeking a better life opportunity: they may have failed to use the legal visa system or have been rejected by it. Given the large sums of money some of such migrants pay to traffickers, they may come from the wealthier social classes in their home countries.
Many people coming from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine are fleeing out of fear. Ukrainians in Europe are getting a more welcoming reception than some other nationalities, which is a source of discord and complaints of prejudice, but perhaps inevitable as especially the Eastern European tribes have a greater proximity to the Ukrainian tribe. Corrupt rulers need to be rooted out and then maybe the war driven refugees will reduce in numbers, but such rulers are widespread.
However, many countries in Africa and the Levant have huge problems of poverty and unemployment. In North Africa the likes of Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt have large numbers of young men (18-35) but no employment to occupy them, and therefore with little prospect of a family life. Some West African countries have similar problems. Many of these nations have embedded hopelessness, perhaps largely because their nations’ real wealth has been stolen by the ruling few, systemic corruption being at the heart of their cultures. Covid made many undeveloped countries even poorer. Unless such undeveloped nations adopt policies, which are designed to educate and enrich their own people generally, it is hard to see how the tide of mass migration of hopeless, disenfranchised and restless young people, who are not really refugees, will be stemmed.
The ravages of global warming add to the trauma of struggling nations especially in Africa. If swathes of land which once were cultivated are turned to desert by the earth heating up, will not those unable to feed and water themselves most certainly look north for survival?
AND THEN THERE ARE BOATS – THE ENGLISH CHANNEL
For continental Europe joined to the Eastern land mass by Turkey, millions cross borders illegally over land, from as far as Pakistan and Bangladesh. As mentioned above Turkey is a buffer, paid off for now by the EU.
But the boats get the most publicity. Small boat crossings of the English Channel have diminished by 16% this year, with some 45,700 people having come in 2022 and some 25,000 in 2023 already, with a total of 56,000 projected for the year. While the UK and France have cooperation agreements where the UK pays hundreds of millions for French authorities to prevent crossings, success in slowing them down is slow. Criminal gangs of smugglers of people operate systematically across Europe bringing them to French shores for thousands of Euros a time, with many migrants having crossed various intra Europe borders. In Northern France the smuggling gangs now, it is said, are led by Afghan and Kurdish criminals. In 2022 the nationality of the biggest group of illegal boat people to the UK was Albanian, not true asylum seekers. But Albanian gangs are less successful now. Cooperation between the UK and Albanian authorities has it seems slowed the flow, with Albanian gangs in France less potent as smugglers.
To get to Northern France is a long and tough journey, overland from the Mediterranean coast or from Eastern borders, and so those who make these journeys are strongly committed to get to the UK. Some commentators suggest that the Continental European authorities may not be doing as much as they could to prevent the journeys to Northern France, happy to see thousands of asylum seekers become the UK’s problem.
The UK is obliged to help the people in boats once they are in its waters. Its ability to return illegal immigrants to their native countries is fraught with legal obstacles, as well as practical ones. The EU accepts few returns. It is said that a major attraction of the UK is that its shadow economy, more prevalent than in much of Europe, enables illegal immigrants to work more easily here: albeit many will be employed by abusive employers as these workers will lack legal protection. It surely is in fact impossible now to stop the small boats completely. Perhaps the UK shadow economy needs addressing but where is the resource to do that? Real progress will surely only come when Continental Europe stops migrants crossing border after border to the channel and enforces rules which oblige nations to do that. That would have to be combined with a crackdown on smuggling gangs, and on the availability of the sub-standard boats and engines essential as transport. Surely more could be done in this respect. Most remedies require global cooperation or multi-national cooperation which is today in shorter supply than is needed on this complex topic.
However, the new UK Illegal Migration Act 2023 has the purpose of preventing and deterring immigrants who have no permission to enter the UK, especially by boat. While debates will continue over the likely effectiveness, and perhaps the morality of this Act, it represents a new effort to reduce illegal immigrants seeking asylum. It places a duty on the Government to detain any such immigrant and to remove them from the UK to their place of origin or other safe destination. These immigrants are not entitled to stay here while claiming asylum. Hence the arrangement with Rwanda under which the UK can transport people to Rwanda for accommodation there. The Act is especially designed to stop dangerous small boat crossings, illustrated by the fact that any country passed through to get to the UK is not treated as a place of origin. The effectiveness of this approach will only be seen over time. As always, implementation is key and will require a considerable infrastructure and human resource from the civil service, as well as their buy-in to the process.
MORE BOATS – THE MEDITERRANEAN
But Channel boat crossings pale into insignificance compared to Mediterranean crossings. In the UK a few weeks ago the drowning of six migrants in the Channel was hailed as evidence of failed policy. But so far in 2023 well over 2000 lives have been lost in Mediterranean crossings. Over 100,000 people have landed in Italy already in 2023, most from Tunisia. Just as the UK pays France, so the EU pays Tunisia to slow migrants down. There are crossings too to Greece and Spain. Arrivals from Turkey are sent back by Greek authorities. Suffice to say the EU arguably has a far more intractable problem, not least because its Southern members are direct destinations across a far more turbulent sea than the English Channel. Loss of lives is a daily event. And with 4 million refugees already in Turkish camps, the sword of Damocles which is illegal immigration will only grow in its threat.
Within the EU, under the Dublin procedure it is the EU country of first arrival which should process an asylum application. And illegal immigrants who cross borders can be returned to the country of first arrival. This is of course very unfair on Italy and Greece in fact, where inevitably most boats arrive: and so, countries voluntarily agreed to waive the procedure and take migrants from Italy as a solidarity mechanism. However, Italy now refuses to accept returns, and Germany now refuses to accept immigrants from Italy. That is, the EU scheme is a in a mess, illustrating the strains the sheer volume of the problem creates. If millions more Africans feel their only hope is to migrate North, the EU faces a future migration tsunami, and the social and political problems will multiply exponentially.
CORRUPT LEADERS ARE THE ROOT CAUSE
Migration is a burning, long-term issue. Sadly, politicisation of the issue means arguments get distorted, as do questions of human decency. For the UK, the small boats symbolise for some people a failed immigration policy. Many critics’ main concern seems to be to link this back to another Brexit problem, which clouds objective consideration. On 22 August a report by “Indeed” indicates that the new points system in the UK for qualification to enter the UK and work has resulted in high volumes of applications from outside the EU by able people. This can be highly beneficial to growing the economy. But a high volume of legal immigrants, which render the current number of illegal immigrants almost insignificant, still exacerbates issues of the ability of the UK social infrastructure, such as housing, schools and healthcare, to support them as needed. Then there is the “gut feel” of the general UK electorate as to an acceptable level of immigration: that is being exploited perhaps to distort the rational arguments and benefits weighed against disadvantages. But other European countries face similar problems multiplied many times over.
Europe is by no means the major host for refugees who are driven from their own countries. Bangladesh hosts the persecuted from Myanmar. Pakistan is a host for Afghans. Other African countries such as Ethiopia take hundreds of thousands of refugees. This is a truly global problem, requiring global cooperation for a solution. Focus just on boats can seriously distract from the wider humanitarian issues of people displacement both within their own country and displacement to other countries.
But the most intractable problems are that refugees arise in their millions from wars and civil conflicts, persecutions, tribal racism and severe poverty. The cause is largely corrupt dictators and other protagonists for whom the life and livelihoods of their citizens are a low priority, well exemplified by Putin and Assad, but emulated too in many a developing country. It is even possible that Russia and China, as they destabilise or take precious natural resources out of Africa are promoting mass migration to Europe: possibly migration is their most powerful soft weapon to further their declared objectives of weakening democracies. Wherever corruption is rife, there will be people in large numbers who want to leave, whether through fear or hopelessness. In countries which people commonly desert to find safer and potentially a more hopeful existence, the final answers lie in their becoming more attractive economically and safer so that people want to stay. Western democracies perhaps should be focussing efforts there.
