My party must treat this migrant crisis as a national emergency

I’m proud of my country for the role it’s played in welcoming Ukrainian refugees here in their time of need.  We’ve always been a kind and tolerant country, but we’re being complete pushovers when it comes to controlling illegal immigration.

Criminal gangs are trafficking tens of thousands of people to British shores and then my constituents in Dudley North have to pay, with their hard-earned taxes, to put them up in hotels – hotels they don’t have the money to go and visit themselves.

We voted in 2016 to take back control of our borders, yet in 2022 taxpayers are spending £7 million every day on putting up illegal immigrants in hotels, at the height of a cost-of-living crisis. Thousands of illegal immigrants have been here for up to five years, fully supported by taxpayers while awaiting a decision on their claim! It is embarrassing.

12,000 this year have come from Albania (fifteen times more than the year before).  This is a safe country and don’t take my word for it:  Germany and Sweden don’t accept asylum claims from Albania, so why are we continuing to do so?

Brexit was about taking back control of our money, law and borders but I’m afraid this saga shows that we have control of neither. I am sick to the teeth of hearing from the umpteenth minister that "we need to legislate" and wait indefinitely for this to happen, it is the political will to make things happen, quickly and with determination, that has been sorely missing.

What is patently clear is that there is no way the Labour Party can solve this, as Sir Keir wants to bring back free movement and re-join the EU. But the government needs to solve this by the end of March 2023, or we will start losing great colleagues from the Red Wall.    

First, we must amend our modern slavery laws so that we allow in genuine asylum seekers, but immediately reject and deport economic migrants arriving here illegally.  This is a national emergency, and needs to be solved with emergency, fast-track legislation by the end of March, not the usual, slow-paced stuff that always gets watered down by Labour opportunism and defeatism.

Second, all hotel contracts must come to an end by the end of March, and not a single penny more must go from taxpayers to housing illegal immigrants in hotels. The cost of this policy has been significantly more than just the hotel bill. Welfare, public services, ruined tourist areas, destabilized and frightened communities – to name but a few issues.

Third, illegal arrival on our shores must mean immediate detention, deportation and an automatic rejection of any asylum or modern slavery claim.  You shouldn’t get the privilege of using the protection of our law if you’re not prepared to abide by it. If ECHR rulings continue to prevent the Rwanda flights from taking off, we should leave it completely.

And finally, we must stop wasting taxpayers’ money funding left-wing quangos and campaigns that are stopping us from dealing with this.  Even if one disagrees with controlling our borders and defending the rule of law, it’s obviously insane and undemocratic for the taxpayer to fund people and organisations that actively campaign and thwart the policies of the elected government. The Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) needs to be scrapped and the millions of pounds it uses to train and help lefty law firms that keep suing the government must be put to better use.

I love the Conservative Party. It is the only party capable of matching the aspiration, hope and dreams of the people of this great country.  It granted us a referendum on the EU, and delivered Brexit when everyone thought it was an impossible dream, but Brexit remains unfinished business on several fronts. My loyalty is first and foremost to my constituents and my country.

If we don’t put this right, and as a matter of real urgency, robustly control our borders by the end of this March, and if we continue to allow an elected government to be taken for fools by criminal gangs, human traffickers and lefty lawyers then the people of our great country will speak volumes and very clearly at the next general election.

Marco Longhi is the Member of Parliament for Dudley North