BRITAIN’S NEW TOUGH LINE ON IMMIGRATION

IT SHOULD therefore have come as no surprise that the issue of immigration was much in the news in Britain last week when the PM unveiled a new Illegal Migration Bill providing for anyone who enters the UK illegally to be removed within 28 days and blocked from returning or claiming British citizenship in the future. Speaking about the issue, Sunak has said bluntly “If you come illegally, you will not be allowed to stay”. Explaining further, he said that it was important to focus on the seriousness of the issue, with some 45,000 people crossing the English Channel in 2022, mainly from France and aiming to enter the UK illegally, many of whom had been exploited or trafficked by criminal gangs putting their lives in danger. Our policy, he said, is “to break this cycle of misery. It is fair and moral and the right and compassionate thing to do”.

In addition, the PM made a one-day trip across the channel on Friday to see French president Emmanuel Macron. This was mainly to discuss co-operation in stopping the illegal crossings in small boats but doubtless covered a range of other topics of mutual interest.

Reportedly, this was a notably warm and productive meeting between the two leaders after Franco-British relations had been at a low ebb for some years because of Brexit. One outcome was British agreement to pay for a new migrants’ detention centre on French soil and a French commitment to work more closely with the UK in stopping migrants from leaving France in the first place. There has already been criticism of the government’s new immigration Bill by human rights groups and charities in the UK and by the UN’s refugee agency, all of whom habitually oppose restrictions on immigration. It will also be opposed by some in Parliament and face separate legal challenges. But the problem is becoming worse with the numbers already unacceptably high and said to be likely to soar to an estimated 80,000 this year despite a new FrancoBritish commitment to crack down on this dangerous and illegal traffic, particularly when most of those involved are not desperate refugees fleeing for their lives but economic migrants seeking a better life in the UK.

In Britain, control of the nation’s borders has become an issue of prime importance in recent years, not least because the pressure to take responsibility for this was one reason for withdrawing from the EU in 2020. Polls suggest that most rational people do not object to controlled immigration in accordance with established legal procedures. Indeed, one of the strengths of Britain, as a rich and stable democracy committed to the rule of law and respect for human rights worldwide, has been its willingness to provide a safe haven over the years for those genuinely facing persecution in their own countries – from the Huguenots as Protestants fleeing France during the 17th century onwards to Jews in Nazi Germany during the 1930s and beyond. This has included, more recently, refugees from Afghanistan and from Hong Kong after Beijing’s security crackdown there, and those displaced by the war in Ukraine. But Britain as a relatively small island is already overcrowded with a population of some 67 million. So, for the nation to survive and maintain its existing standard of living it has to control such immigration.

So public opinion is strongly supportive of offering harbourage to those facing tyranny and persecution in their own countries as long as this is done in an orderly way. But uncontrolled immigration rankles and the public has no truck with those who falsely claim to be in fear of their lives.

There are, of course, people in Western countries who advocate totally open borders in a Utopian world order and regard the very concept of borders with suspicion if not hostility. But there must be limits to how many people Western countries can absorb. Those who advocate an open-door immigration policy like to portray their approach as compassionate and tolerant. But, to my eye, it is far from that. The stark truth is that open borders with no controls at all are a recipe for social breakdown in the receiving country. They take no account of the impact and pressures on local infrastructure like housing, hospitals and other medical facilities, transport, schools and the rest of the institutional public services that a properly functioning nationstate depends on. The evidence shows that many in Britain support the Sunak government’s attempt through new legislation to bring some order to what has become an intolerable situation in which refugees crossing the English Channel are risking -- and too often losing -- their lives while the criminal gangs profiteer from the misery of others. The Prime Minister’s plan is bold and will encounter hurdles. But Mr Sunak has said he is up to the task of pushing it through as he repeats his pledge that it is “the right and compassionate thing to do”.

WITH so much interest in Ukraine, an important recent development in another country in the region, Georgia, seems largely to have escaped the attention of the international media. But the strategic importance of this small former Soviet republic on the Black Sea, which after the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991 became an independent democratic republic, is clear because of its geographical position between Turkey and Russia immediately to its north, putting it at the crossroads of Asia and Europe.

Last week, Georgia’s ruling party withdrew a controversial “foreign influence” Bill after two days of mass street protests outside parliament in the nation’s capital Tbilisi. The crowds were angry at a new Russian-style law which would classify non-governmental media as “foreign agents” – tantamount, it is said, to “spies” in Russia - if they received more than 20 per cent of their funds from abroad. It is contended that a similar law in Russia has been used to limit press freedom and suppress civil society there.

There is no space to examine this in any detail today. But it is interesting that Georgia, which Russia invaded in 2008 and its forces still occupy two breakaway regions amounting to about one fifth of Georgian territory, is pro-Western. Many Russians have fled there to escape mobilisation for the Ukraine war. But, reportedly, Georgia fears its northern neighbour and has maintained its neutrality – perhaps wisely out of self-preservation – and has refused to back Ukraine openly. Being orientated towards the West, Georgia has applied for EU candidate status and some are now concerned that the new draft law in relation to the media could affect this status. Already, the EU has warned that the draft is “incompatible with EU values and standards”.

Despite many in Georgia seeing their future in Europe, others apparently want Russian influence over the country to be reestablished. Who knows how all this will work out?

But these latest developments produce growing uncertainty in the region. Some commentators are suggesting they are creating new concern in Moscow as Russian forces remain bogged down in their cruel, senseless and disastrous war in Ukraine – with a limited prospect of military success or a negotiated settlement to bring it to an end without further death and destruction.