Aren’t you very tired of the government’s promises to solve the problem of illicit migration to this country? The Mail on Sunday certainly is, and we regret having to return to the topic. But we feel like we have to do it.
For more than ten years, the Conservatives’ immigration policy has been as compelling as one of those recorded messages that says: ‘Your call is important to us.’ One of our representatives will contact you shortly. You are now number 92 in line.’ You can almost hear Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons as speeches, political announcements and articles from ministers pour out of Whitehall, each time promising that something significant is really going to happen.
Since David Cameron’s tenure, we have been kept clinging to promises of repressive measures, “hostile environments”, vans patrolling the streets with arrest warnings, tougher sentences for lawbreakers, plans to house migrants abroad, attempts to gain the cooperation of France, and the mirage of a British departure from the Charter of “Human Rights” that immigrants endlessly exploit to avoid deportation.
By our count, there have been five Prime Ministers and six Home Secretaries since this started, and who knows how many more there will be, each spouting so much hot air on this topic that they could be repurposed as heat pumps to help save the planet. of ecological ruin.
In fact, it must be admitted that the strong words of the Minister of the Interior, Suella Braverman, in her interview today with The Mail on Sunday are impressive.
A group of people believed to be migrants are taken to Dover, Kent, from a Border Force ship after being rescued during a small boat incident in the English Channel on Friday.
The Mail on Sunday and our sister newspaper, the Daily Mail, have endeavored to cover this huge issue, unwelcome by our pro-immigration elite, with care and reflection. And without a doubt it is a very difficult problem to solve.
The Daily Mail’s recent expose of the appalling behavior of some immigration lawyers, an excellent old-fashioned (and widely praised) scoop based on diligent reporting, has proven beyond a doubt that the system is completely broken.
And we have always hoped that the promises made by the Conservatives would be kept.
In fact, it must be admitted that the strong words of the Minister of the Interior, Suella Braverman, in her interview today with The Mail on Sunday are impressive. God knows we are prepared to go into battle with Conservative ministers, side by side, if the trumpet ever sounds for impeachment. But too often it has been a big cloud of bluster and a crisis that won’t go away.
If even a tenth of the determination the Government has put into Net Zero had been applied to illegal immigration, we would surely have gotten somewhere by now.
Make no mistake: we would get nothing better from Sir Keir Starmer’s neo-Blairite Labor Party. The Blair-Brown government had the “driving purpose” of changing the composition of Britain by encouraging large-scale arrivals from abroad. Furthermore, as we learned from the leaks and from Gordon Brown’s embarrassing comments on the issue when he thought the microphones were off while discussing the views of Labor pensioner Gillian Duffy, any legitimate concerns about the scale of migration are considered “intolerance” .
Voters have a clear choice between the two main parties. A fundamental principle of our democracy is that there is disagreement, so we are not haughtily governed by a perpetual elite who care little about what we think.
The Conservatives speak for a very important part of Britain, a part that has not been treated with much consideration lately.
It is true that the recent problems of Brexit, Covid and the change of prime ministers have distracted them from their purpose. But not anymore.
A response to the border crisis is their most urgent task. No one else will address it. Suella Braverman and his colleagues would earn the gratitude of millions and our unwavering support if they continue to speak out with cold, hard resolve to end a problem that has been allowed to fester for far too long.