Boris Johnson’s election promise to reduce immigration was a sham
The penny is finally dropping. As we have been saying since the (Australian) points-based system (PBS) was first mooted ahead of the Brexit vote and later sold to the public in the 2019 election campaign – a loose PBS, Australian in name only, would lead to more immigration not less. The government’s version of the PBS has significantly weakened control. As even those who view immigration from a different perspective to us have acknowledged, lower qualifications and pay requirements, unlimited numbers and abandoning the requirement to look to the local workforce first was always going to lead to higher immigration from outside the EU. And yet the Prime Minister said that the opposite would happen. That was quite simply a sham. Well, that colossal chicken is now coming home to roost, and, dare we say, we have been warning for three years, if not longer, that it would happen. Leaving the free movement arrangement was essential to regaining control but that was just the beginning. Remarkably, there are people who claim that immigration is now being controlled. Well, yes but if the control mechanism is an absurdly loose PBS that allows big business to import as many (cheaper) foreign workers as it likes, how much control is there really? Our Chairman, Alp Mehmet, wrote to The Times this week, responding to James Kirkup’s assertion that people who voted Brexit are not bothered about more immigration. Yes, really. Read Alp’s letter here (fifth letter down the page).
And then there’s the total absence of control of our border, where illegal boat arrivals shot up 95-fold between 2018 and 2021 (keep up to date with our Tracking Station). So, did Mr Johnson ever intend to reduce immigration? Was he telling the truth on the Sunday before the election when interviewed by Sophie Ridge on Sky News he looked into the camera and said immigration would be both controlled and reduced? Hmm.
Blog of the week
Many If Not Most Of Those Crossing The Channel Destroy Their Identity Documents
Deliberate destruction of documentation by tens of thousands crossing the Channel in boats without prior permission must be treated as prima facie evidence of asylum abuse where such persons seek protection (as 98% do). Applying for asylum having already destroyed your documents is already a criminal offence under a 2004 law. Yet the government increasingly allows in tens of thousands of people who cannot be identified with any certainty and quickly releases them into communities around the country. This is naive, negligent madness. As the Crown Prosecution Service has said: “The destruction of documents disables the authorities from establishing where an entrant came from, in order to increase the chances of success of a claim or application and/or to thwart removal… These offences have the real potential to undermine the whole system of immigration control.” The fact is that tens of thousands of people we are unable to vet properly are being almost immediately bailed in their thousands to live amongst the public at taxpayer expense. Furthermore, some 30,000 abscond, to go to ground and enter the shadow economy. Read the full blog here.
Migration Watch in the news
Our Chairman Alp Mehmet has been in demand this week. See below:
Telegraph: More foreign nationals to arrive in UK this year than before Brexit
‘The Government must get a grip and deliver the sustained reduction in numbers that they promised. The loose system that they introduced 16 months ago does the opposite.’
BBC: Has the government been deliberate and dishonest on immigration?
‘To suggest that 840,000 long-term visa grants in 2021 is actually attracting the best and the brightest is just something, I’m afraid, that I will not accept.’
GB News: Migration: Does Brexit mean we’re finally in control of our borders?
‘We were promised that it was going to be controlled and nothing of the sort has happened.’
See here for Express.co.uk’s write up of this appearance from Alp.
Talk TV: Will the Rwanda policy stop the illegal Channel crossings?
‘I think the deal with Rwanda will depend to a certain extent on the amount of political will, the amount of backbone that the government has, as to how successful it proves.’
Make your voice heard
Scrapping an annual cap on migrant work permits; lowering skills and education thresholds for visas; no priority for British workers. This is not what people voted for in 2016, nor in 2017, nor 2019. We were told that ‘control’ meant a reduction in immigration. However, it is becoming increasingly obvious that this government is as hell bent on flinging open our borders to the world as their predecessors. As a result of the weakening of basic work-visa rules (as we have described above), those in 80% of the world’s countries now find it easier to come and work here, while millions of UK jobseekers get an increasingly raw deal. The points-based system has been disastrous. Please write to your MP to let our political class know that we know what is going on.