Failure to control immigration will destroy the Tories

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In these dark winter days, why not raise your spirits by briefly reminding yourself of the idyllic state that Boris pledged to create for us in his 2019 manifesto – the vision that swept him to power even in communities inaccessible to Conservatism since universal suffrage was first introduced? It must surely be therapeutic to revisit those green sunlit uplands.

“Our new [immigration] system gives us real control over who is coming in and out. It allows us to attract the best and brightest from all over the world.

“Only by establishing immigration controls and ending freedom of movement will we be able to attract the high-skilled workers we need to contribute to our economy, our communities and our public services. There will be fewer lower-skilled migrants and overall numbers will come down. And we will ensure that the British people are always in control.” (Get Brexit Done: Unleash Britain’s Potential, Conservative manifesto 2019, p. 22.)

Or, as Julian of Norwich – surely the patroness of manifesto writers – more succinctly phrased it: “All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” That is how we came to inhabit today a Britain where Brexit is well and truly done and our borders are secured by immigration controls that have ensured overall numbers have come down.

Until we waken up, that is, and confront the reality behind Boris’s idyllic fantasy. Brexit done? If that is the case, why are we still arguing with the Brussels hoods about a border down the Irish Sea, EU officials based on British soil impeding trade between one part of the United Kingdom and another, and the supposedly apocalyptic (and déjà-vu) consequences of triggering Article 16?

From the announcement of the referendum result on 24 June, 2016 it was obvious that the only way Britain could ever free itself from the toils of a malevolent confederacy determined to sabotage its sovereignty and prosperity was by grasping the nettle of a no-deal Brexit. The fact that the UK had a £49bn trade deficit with the EU last year clearly signals how much more Brussels had to lose from any politically motivated trade war.

Our politicians, however, lacked the courage to cut the Gordian knot; today they are similarly faltering at the lesser prospect of invoking Article 16, as Britain is perfectly entitled to do. This is the real-life background, with Northern Ireland increasingly divorced from the rest of the United Kingdom, against which Boris bumptiously claims to have got Brexit “done”.

That imposture, however, fades into insignificance compared with the bare-faced lies the government is disseminating concerning immigration. In 2020, detected illegal arrivals by small boat totalled 16,500; so far this year they have amounted to 30,642. Net migration to the UK in the year ending March 2020 totalled 313,000; since 2013 non-EU immigration has nearly trebled. But “overall numbers will come down,” says Boris.

For decades now, the fundamental problem over mass immigration has been the elites’ support for it. It gave them a reassuring feeling of occupying the moral high ground to see the streets through which they were driven (though not where they lived) exhibiting vivid evidence of multiculturalism. The moronic thinking behind this notion that uncontrolled immigration was good for the country ranged from corporations coveting pools of cheap labour, to New Labour ideologues’ desire to “rub the Right’s nose in diversity”, according to Andrew Neather, former adviser to Tony Blair.

That such shallow prejudices should have inspired a massive revolution in demography, culture and public service provision encapsulates the total incapacity of the liberal elites to run the country and the pressing need for them to be removed from positions of influence.

Every government promises immigration control, but none of them delivers. Throughout the establishment there is an ingrained sympathy for migration, even when blatantly illegal. In 2019 there were 114,000 convictions of UK residents for TV licence fee evasion, but fewer than 50 convictions for illegal entry or overstaying. Yet in that year there were 16,000 detected illegal entries by small boats alone. Between January and September this year, taxpayers funded the supply of 14,000 mobile telephones to illegal migrants. Is this a hostile environment?

Former senior Home Office personnel have estimated that there are more than one million illegal migrants in the United Kingdom and the number is increasing by 70,000 annually. France cynically funnels migrants towards the Channel. French authorities claim to have prevented 18,000 crossings this year, with 300 arrests and 65 convictions. Periodically, there is a high-profile clear-out, as in the recent raid on the migrant shanty town near Dunkirk. But why was it permitted to arise in the first place? And how many of the 18,000 illegals virtuously restrained by the French police were subsequently among the 30,642 who have so far crossed this year?

Gerald Darmanin, the French interior minister, has suddenly discovered the capability to halt 100 per cent of illegal crossings, in return for £54m in funding from Britain as subvention for counter measures. Yet there is a discernible variation in effective measures which co-relates with the fluctuation in Franco-British relations over Brexit and fishing. It seems Alexander Lukashenko is not the only European politician using migrants as a weapon.

But the prime blame rests with Britain. The establishment has been for decades so opposed to immigration control that it has allowed the system to collapse. Obfuscation was the open borders fanatics’ first line of defence. We now know that, each year since 2012, net immigration figures were on average 43,000 higher than the official statistics. By 2020, government figures had lost 387,000 migrants. As for returns of illegals, between 1 January 2019 and 1 October 2020 fewer than 250 migrants who had crossed the Channel illegally were returned to mainland Europe.

Our asylum system is a farce. But don’t forget, “we will ensure that the British people are always in control”. That claim must count as the most prolific generation of bovine ordure by any British government. The British people have never been in control of immigration policy – not from 1968, when opinion polls recorded 83 per cent support for a complete halt to immigration, until today, when the post-Brexit climate makes the government more cautious about how it camouflages its intentions.

The problem for the Conservatives is very serious. The Red Wall crumbled on the symbiotic issues of sovereignty and immigration. Northerners took Boris at his word and broke the ideological ties that had bound them to Labour for generations. Now, watching the news from the Channel, disillusionment is setting in. Soon that will turn to vengeful resentment and the Tories will have dissipated the most important opportunity ever offered them to become a One Nation party.

Their claims are laughable. Fast-track the brightest and best immigrants to bring their talents to the NHS? When up to 85,000 British applicants are already chasing 7,000 places at UK medical schools? The public is heart-sick of establishment lies, Tory or Labour. Before long, our friends in the North are going to rumble Boris in a very big way and then it will be curtains for the Conservatives. However, the conventional wisdom around Islington dinner tables is that immigration is safely “off the radar”. So, that is all right, then.