Daniel Hannan: Labour’s pledge to ‘smash the gangs’ is based on a lie
DANIEL HANNAN
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere was a Conservative MEP from 1999 to 2020 and is now President of the Institute for Free Trade.
Labour’s immigration policy is based on a lie. A seductive lie, a lie that has been so often repeated that I suspect they have come to believe it themselves, but a lie none the less.
The lie is this. Illegal immigration is caused by people traffickers. They, rather than the illegal immigrants themselves, are to blame. If we could find some way to “smash the gangs”, goes the argument, we would end the mass movement of sans-papiers across the Channel.
A moment’s thought reveals the flaw. The traffickers do not provoke the demand; they service it. The root cause of the influx is the desire of young men from poorer countries to reach Britain.
Why are they so determined to come here? Why not stay in Italy or France or any of the other prosperous countries they have passed through en route? Not, contrary to popular belief, because we offer them an unusually generous benefits package. We don’t. No, they choose Britain because they are statistically almost certain not to be removed.
The only way to end this Völkerwanderung is to make it clear that, if you enter Britain illegally, you will not be allowed to remain. Since it is usually impossible to prove where the migrants began their journeys, and since France refuses to take them back, this means sending them to a safe third country. That is what the Rwanda scheme was all about, and it was already having an effect even before being implemented, as fewer people attempted the journey, and some of those already here chose to leave.
Labour, of course, cancelled that project. It did so because its first instinct in any situation is to side with the notionally oppressed group. It is especially prone to identify victims among people from poor countries, or people who are not white. It therefore sees the migrants, not as ambitious youths looking for a better life, but as desperate refugees – which very few of them are.
Why does it do so, when most have their asylum claims rejected, when 80 per cent are young men (the opposite of the usual refugee profile) and when they are coming here via a safe country?
The answer lies in psychology. As the neuro-scientist Kurt Gray, and the late social psychologist Daniel Wegner showed, we are wired to divide the world into those who do and those who are done to, oppressors and victims, agents and patients. We struggle, on a deep intuitive level, to accept the obvious truth that most people are both.
For example, we put Aung San Suu Kyi in the “patients” category: a democracy activist who had been placed under house arrest by a military dictatorship. When she began to persecute the Rohingya minority, it upset a lot of observers. Plainly, the Rohingya were now the “patients”, the victims, which made her the “agent”, the oppressor. Adjusting our mental filing system is never easy.
Rather than go through the discomfort of cognitive dissonance, Labour continues to classify the migrants as patients and looks for someone else at whom to direct its ire, namely the people smugglers who, being motivated by profit, are obvious targets.
Now don’t get me wrong, the gangsters who run this foul business are dreadful. On the rare occasions that we catch them (rare, because most of them direct their operations from homes in the Middle East) we should prosecute them with full force.
But let’s not pretend that the people clambering into the dinghies are innocent victims. They have paid a great deal of money to make the journey, calculating (probably correctly) that they will recoup their investment after a couple of years of black market activities in Britain.
If we want to change the calculus of advantage in their minds, we need to start deporting them in earnest. That will probably mean leaving the ECHR, but the ECHR is just one part of the problem. We also need to deal with the UN Refugee Convention and, even more, with domestic case law. This is, as Robert Jenrick kept arguing during the recent leadership contest, and as Kemi Badenoch seems also to accept, a gargantuan task that will keep ministers occupied for years.
Labour, of course, has no interest in challenging the judiciary, let alone chafing at the ECHR, the Human Rights Act and the rest of the bonds by which judges tie the hands of elected representatives. So it offers a series of ridiculous gimmicks, while making Lear-like threats against the people-smugglers.
None of it will work. Numbers will continue to rise, and Sir Keir Starmer’s one concrete policy, namely to go back into the EU’s refugee sharing scheme, will result (as it did during the two years that we were in it) in many more illegals coming here from the Continent than making the return journey – a bizarre way to throw away the advantage of our island geography.
No, behind all the tough talk is the reality of a party that still sides instinctively with the migrants – whom the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, said she’d be happy to house in her own home. (That was more than nine years ago, by the way, Home Secretary. Have you found one yet?)
We are in for years of this. Announcing new spending increases, pledging crackdowns, meeting European leaders to announce joint initiatives, commissioning more patrol vessels. Meanwhile, the French will continue to escort dinghies to the median line, we will continue to provide a taxi service to Kent, and numbers will rise and rise. What was it Starmer used to say about “restoring trust in politics”?
This article (Daniel Hannan: Labour’s pledge to ‘smash the gangs’ is based on a lie) was created and published by Conservative Home and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Daniel Hannan
••••
The Liberty Beacon Project is now expanding at a near exponential rate, and for this we are grateful and excited! But we must also be practical. For 7 years we have not asked for any donations, and have built this project with our own funds as we grew. We are now experiencing ever increasing growing pains due to the large number of websites and projects we represent. So we have just installed donation buttons on our websites and ask that you consider this when you visit them. Nothing is too small. We thank you for all your support and your considerations … (TLB)
••••
Comment Policy: As a privately owned web site, we reserve the right to remove comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats of violence, racism, or personal/abusive attacks on other users. This also applies to trolling, the use of more than one alias, or just intentional mischief. Enforcement of this policy is at the discretion of this websites administrators. Repeat offenders may be blocked or permanently banned without prior warning.
••••
Disclaimer: TLB websites contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, health, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.
••••
Disclaimer: The information and opinions shared are for informational purposes only including, but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material are not intended as medical advice or instruction. Nothing mentioned is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
Leave a Reply