RW Johnson: Immigration chaos – Biden’s border blunder and Starmer’s warning

Joe Biden's failure to address the southern border crisis early in his presidency allowed Trump to capitalize on the issue, leading to a significant poll disadvantage for Biden. This situation mirrors historical challenges in UK politics where immigration became a prominent issue, influencing elections and policies. As Labour's Yvette Cooper tackles illegal immigration with a new Border Security Command, the real test will be whether this approach can effectively curb the influx and avoid a right-wing backlash..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here..Join us for BizNews' first investment-focused conference on Thursday, 12 September, in Hermanus, featuring top experts like Frans Cronje, Piet Viljoen, and more. Get insights on electricity and exploiting SA's gas bounty from new and familiar faces. Register here..By R.W. Johnson .___STEADY_PAYWALL___.Joe Biden's biggest mistake was not to fix the mess at America's southern border as soon as he was elected. The uncontrolled flood of immigrants pouring in had become Trump's key issue and was politically very potent. If Biden was to deflate the Trump threat he had to act firmly and fast. He didn't and Trump is now leading him by six points in the polls with immigration a top issue. No doubt conscious of that, Tony Blair has just warned Sir Keir Starmer to take firm and immediate control of the immigration issue or risk seeing Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party lead a right-wing crusade on the issue..The big question is what exactly to do. Virtually every day there is news of fresh small boat arrivals across the English Channel. On average 92 illegal immigrants arrive every day by that route. This creates great agitation, not only because those newcomers are almost invariably economic migrants, not the refugees they claim to be, but because their very arrival – against the law – is a sign of the impotence of the state. .Read more: 🔒 Bloomberg editorial: Trump's immigration overhaul is a crisis waiting to happen.Britain is a small crowded island with a population density second in Europe only to the Netherlands. It has a housing crisis and its hospitals are under great pressure. It is also a highly developed country with a limited need for more unskilled labour. On top of that the illegal migrants then have to be housed and fed at public expense while their applications to stay are evaluated. What the migrants know, however, is that the really big thing is that they are now physically in the UK. For whatever the rules are and whatever the government says, the fact is that the large majority of migrants who have arrived in the same way as them, have ended up staying in the UK..David Cameron came to power in 2010 promising to reduce immigration numbers to "the tens of thousands" a year. This he entirely failed to do, although in Opposition the Tories had strongly criticised the Blair-Brown governments for allowing in an enormous and unexpected flood of East European immigrants. But the key to that had been Blair's decision not to seek (as most EU states did) any limitation to the "free movement of people" policy of the EU after EU enlargement to include Eastern Europe. Increasingly, voters felt that the EU's policy had been designed for another era and was now seriously at fault. So the Poles, Hungarians and Bulgarians in their hundreds of thousands, poured into Britain, creating ripples of alarm. The further sight of a million-plus Syrians pouring into Germany in 2015 alarmed many in Europe. There was, they knew, an almost unlimited number of Muslims wanting to immigrate to Europe, but they feared the cultural clash of civilisations that that would produce. .In the 2016 referendum in Britain on EU membership the Brexiteers made great play of that huge Syrian influx: there was film, photos and large posters showing those huge numbers pouring in. They pointed out that if the EU ever allowed Turkey to join there would be another large Muslim influx. There was no doubt that this theme played a considerable role in the ultimate NO vote..Thereafter the Conservative government promised, year after year, that they would cut immigration numbers but they entirely failed to do so. In 2022 1,257,000 migrants arrived and in 2023 1,218,000. Britain suffers from a housing shortage which has helped push house prices up to hideous levels. It has also committed itself to welcome hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong Chinese, escaping from Chairman Xi Jinping, and large numbers of Ukrainians escaping from Putin's missiles. It simply cannot cope with the huge number of others striving to enter. Labour reckons that Britain needs another 1.5 million houses right away..Part of the problem is that the UK is a favoured destination. After all, those migrants who cross the Channel are leaving behind a prosperous EU country. Why not stay in France ? Partly the reason lies in Britain's becoming the most successful multicultural and multi-racial country in Europe. Black and brown people in general and Muslims in particular say that Britain is far more tolerant and welcoming than France. In addition, people in the Third World learn about the West from film and TV, predominantly Anglophone media, and from it they gain an enticing impression of Anglo-Saxon affluence and tolerance. They also know that English is the world language. This seems to cement their feeling that England is their best destination. And, increasingly, of course, they can point to friends or relatives already resident in Britain..All of this has meant that immigration has become a very prominent issue in British politics. During the recent election it was the top issue both for Tories and Reform voters and the fourth most important issue for Labour voters. Sir Keir Starmer had repeatedly made it clear that he would scrap the Tory government's plan to send illegal migrants to Rwanda – and this he has done. People now await a new Labour solution to the problem, knowing full well that if Labour fails to stem the flow of such migrants, both Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party and the Tories will attack in full cry – and this could well lead to a large right-wing reaction against the government..The new Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper – an able woman – has announced that the Labour government will tackle the problem of illegal immigration by seeking to smash the people-smuggler gangs who make fortunes out of putting migrants into small boats to cross the Channel. To this end she is setting up a Border Security Command which will incorporate the services of MI5,MI6, GCHQ, the National Crime Agency, the police, the Border Force and immigration officials. She is currently looking for a Commander for the BSC which is organised rather like a counter-terrorism unit. The Commander will report directly to the Home Secretary, emphasising how high a priority this is..This all sounds very exciting and is very mediatic. But while broadcasting one's plans may make for good government propaganda, it also warns the criminal gangs of what's coming. As it is, successive governments have attacked the gangs but made little progress. There is big money involved; the gangsters are extremely canny; and while the government can only move against the gangs if they have a watertight case in law, the gangs are quite unconstrained by the law..It is instructive to remember the era of Prohibition (1920-1933) in the US. The banning of alcohol sales created an irresistible situation for gangsters. On the one hand plentiful supplies of alcohol were available in Canada. The US-Canada border is the longest in the world and it was always possible to find a way through. And in the US there was a huge customer base longing for an illicit drink and willing to pay well for it. So the 1920s became the great era of American gangsterism – of John Dillinger, Al Capone, Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson. It also saw the rise of Edgar Hoover, his FBI and of the fabled "G-men" who pursued and ultimately killed many of the gangsters. It was all hugely exciting and G-men like Melvin Purvis became the heroes of boys' comics and popular legend. But the problem was that while the criminal possibilities of Prohibition remained so huge, there was never any shortage of other gangsters to keep the bootleg liquor flowing. It was only when Franklin Roosevelt abolished Prohibition in 1933 that the gangsters were put out of business..The cross Channel illegal migration racket is much the same. On the one hand the Channel is only 22 miles wide at its narrowest point and on the other hand there is an inexhaustible supply of desperate people from Africa, Asia and the Middle East wanting to make that crossing – and willing to pay large sums to do so. This creates the same sort of vast criminal opportunity that Prohibition did. The thrilling exploits of Yvette Cooper's Border Security Command may make for good headlines for a while as they nail the odd gang or two but there will always be other criminals only too willing to take their place. The acid test will be whether the cross-Channel migration numbers fall permanently and substantially – or not. It would be very surprising if the BSC can make much difference. .So how can governments put the gangs out of business just as FDR did in the US ? It's really not that difficult. Once it is known that a state will not accept migrants, the flow dries up. Japan, China, India – indeed pretty well all of Asia, simply doesn't accept permanent migrants. Even at the height of the Syrian crisis Saudi Arabia refused to take a single Syrian refugee, saying that they simply wouldn't fit into Saudi society. The only countries that take in large flows of immigrants are the Anglophones – the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and a number of West European states. And in all those countries there is popular pressure to reduce immigration..Read more: US immigration update since President Biden took office.Australia led the way with an alternative solution. Faced by large numbers of small boats bringing illegal Indonesian immigrants to Australia's shores, the Aussies simply deployed their Navy to stop the boats and deposited all the would-be migrants in transit camps in Papua New Guinea and similar places. From there the migrants could apply to immigrate but Australia has a firm policy of aligning immigration with the skills it needs and very few of the Indonesians were medical doctors, computer programmers, qualified nurses etc. So it quickly became clear to Indonesians that if you tried to slip into Australia you simply ended up in Papua New Guinea or some similar place to which you had no wish to go. So illegal immigration dried up. True, the Australian Labour Party criticised this policy but the fact was that it worked and voters were happy about that. So Labour, now in power, has made no move to change this policy..Rishi Sunak's policy of sending illegal immigrants to Rwanda was very deliberately based on the Australian model. Doubtless, if it had worked it would quickly have become as popularly accepted as the Australian policy was. But even many liberal Tories opposed this policy and despite Sunak defending the policy, it was never put into practice. Which has made it easy for Labour to scrap the policy altogether. .If, however, the new Labour policy fails, as seems likely, there is no doubt that Nigel Farage, now in Parliament, will make a mighty hue and cry, which will be taken up by the Tories. In which case the Rwanda option may re-surface. If that happens Labour will be put to the question. Labour criticized the Rwanda policy as ridiculous, racist and reactionary and the party would find it terribly painful to have to eat its words. But if its own policy fails and Farage's furious anti-immigration crusade starts picking up support in working class areas, threatening Labour's majority, what will it do ? It's all very well for Tony Blair to tell Starmer that he must quickly get a grip on immigration, but the fact is that Blair himself never managed to do that..Read also:.The big changes coming to the Australian immigration systemUK immigration cost set to increase by more than 66%How business relocation can lead to UK immigration

RW Johnson: Immigration chaos – Biden’s border blunder and Starmer’s warning

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