FINALLY! The Western world is starting to wake up to its dangerous, ruinously costly and deeply unpopular immigration policies. Yet our benighted government is digging itself ever deeper into an anti-British immigration disaster. Yesterday it was reported that the UK population is on course to rise by 5 million in less than a decade entirely due to immigration.
Meanwhile, Switzerland manages its population successfully through sheer common sense. In Davos last week, federal councillor responsible for asylum Beat Jens announced that Switzerland has the highest rate in Europe for deporting failed asylum seekers. Its 60 per cent success rate for 2024 exceeded 2023’s by 18 per cent, and last year 7,000 individuals were removed. Jens cited several reasons. Fewer refugees enter Switzerland in the first place because it has better agreements with both transit countries and countries of origin, 66 treaties in total. It also has well-trained and effective border personnel, and rigorous systems for local and cantonal management.
Other European countries have abysmal rates, for example France, with between 8 and 15 per cent (only a 0.2 per cent return rate to Algeria). President Macron’s promises of 100 per cent deportation ring pathetically hollow. The EU’s absolute commitment to open borders is beginning to cause unrest in other states too, by failing to establish an effective deportation policy, which languishes at around 30 per cent.
Last October, 17 EU countries, led by Austria and Holland, called for a ‘paradigm shift’ requiring a new legal basis which empowers governments to carry out deportations ‘in full respect of fundamental rights’. Included were proposals to use trade and visa policies as leverage to compel countries to take back their refused nationals. This followed moves by, for example, Germany where controls at all land borders were reinstated, and Holland opted out completely from EU asylum rules.
Hungary was the most drastic, where a new policy called ‘the embassy procedure’ reduced the number of applications by 94 per cent, with only 31 submitted in 2023. The ECJ ruled this infringed on migrants’ rights, but Hungary refused to back down.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen felt obliged to promise a ‘new common approach’ with a legislative framework to speed up and simplify the process, with mutual recognition across Europe. But Germany’s spate of immigrant-related violent crime, culminating in the Aschaffenburg murders by a failed asylum seeker, has persuaded the conservative CDU leader Friedrich Merz to introduce a blanket ban on all asylum seekers.
A poll commissioned by Bild newspaper confirmed that 66 per cent of Germans support Merz’s plan. Not so his political colleagues, who warned that the EU would challenge it, and that it would even entail working with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, currently polling in second place, with 20 per cent. Astonishingly, in spite of the notorious ‘firewall’ against working with the ‘far right’ AfD, Merz has bowed to leader Alice Weidel’s pressure and will put their ‘Influx Limitation Act’ to a vote this coming Friday. This could end up as a potentially fatal attack on the EU’s Schengen policy, and even mark the first steps in the disintegration of the EU itself.
Unprecedented stuff! And yet Starmer’s UK plods on with its increasingly unpopular policies. Faced with the Pakistani rape gangs scandal, the cover-ups and public outrage over the Southport murders, the petty use of ‘human rights’ claims to avoid deportation, and the preferential treatment of illegal migrants over British citizens, even military personnel, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has nothing to offer.
A Thames Water study revealed that as many as one in 12 people living in London may be illegal migrants, but Cooper shows no interest in finding out what the population of the UK actually is. The Home Office has simply stopped counting.
However, with the arrival of President Trump in the White House, consternation has broken out amongst the world’s refugee enthusiasts, while voter majorities are finally seeing there is a solution to the suicidal policies of their unaccountable politicians.
As UK citizens watch while Donald Trump deports illegal migrants, our own government rescues them from the Channel, allows them to bring their relatives in, and one council even pays for their driving lessons! They see that the Trump approach demanding countries take back their illegal migrants is backed by trade tariffs and financial sanctions. Colombia backed down in no time, even offering the presidential plane to fly them back home.
Why, we want to know, does the UK government not do the same? After all, more than half of British voters back Trump’s policies, according to a poll by Opinium. The polling showed that 58 per cent supported ‘declaring a national emergency in the Channel and beginning the process of returning thousands of criminal migrants back to where they came from’, with only 1.25 per cent disagreeing. It had majority support from every party, with Tory and Reform supporters on 76 per cent and even Labour on 50 per cent. They liked President Trump’s call for a ‘revolution of common sense’.
What happens? Still, nothing. The lack of political will and rejection of representative responsibility totally undermines any claim to democratic governance. Alas, it appears any aspiring political party can make appealing promises to get elected, then roll out totally different policies, and the voting public can do nothing about it. The Labour administration, with its massive majority, fears no opposition, and has the legal and financial clout to keep us under control. Again, the Swiss show the world a better way, in their adoption of citizens’ initiatives which actively challenge unpopular government policies.
PM Starmer invariably falls back on the Human Rights Act, claiming it prevents the UK from deporting illegal migrants. President Trump has demonstrated this is nonsense. The UK could leave the European Convention of Human Rights, repeal the Human Rights Act, and sanction home countries if they refuse to accept their own people back. Just like that!
Perhaps we need a Trump-style volley of trade and financial sanctions. Or ultimately just man the barricades?
