Dr Sarah Ingham is the author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.
The re-Reconquista? In 1492, Muslim rule on the Iberian Peninsula ended after seven centuries as Granada was surrendered. Last Friday, it seemed possible that 500 years of history was about to be overturned as a 70,000-strong force invaded Spain’s sovereign territory, Ceuta.
With the crisis coinciding with the release of his summer reading and music playlists, Spain’s Prime Minister seemed to be having a siesta at the switch. In contrast, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni – at tempo furioso – demanded Spain be suspended from Schengen and free movement curtailed.
What prompted the mass movement into Ceuta from Morocco, and why it rapidly dissipated, remains under-explained.
This time last week, the shocking images from a north African coastal backwater led to many a penny dropping in Britain. Nothing has better illustrated that this country has been similarly occupied by unwelcome hordes in their tens of thousands.
Britain is Ceuta – year-in, year-out – just in slow motion. Unlike Ceuta’s unwanted trespassers, those in Britain have no intention of going home – and successive governments have lacked the political will to send them on their way.
A cross-Channel tracker by Migration Watch UK suggests that more than 205,000 illegal immigrants have entered Britain by small boats since 2018. Last year, 41,472 were recorded.
Tuesday was the first anniversary of the UK-France Dangerous Journeys Agreement, aka the one-In, one-out deal. A Home Office spokesperson declared, presumably with a straight face: “This is a clear message to people-smuggling gangs that illegal entry into the UK will not be tolerated.” A year in, it seems that just 4 per cent of all small boat arrivals have been sent back.
Ceuta forced Prime Minister Burnham to head to Dover and visit the Border Force. Against the backdrop of the blue skies over white cliffs, the PM promised the government would be “relentless” in dealing with the problem. But heading off on his hols after a fortnight in the new job says “inaction this day”. LBC’s Nick Ferrari reminded his audience that 2,000 illegal immigrants have arrived since Burnham took over.
The 21st century invisible invasion of Britain can be charted via the two main party manifestos. Neither “immigration”, nor “asylum seeker”, “refugee” or “migrant” appeared in Labour’s in 2001.
In every subsequent election, both legal immigration and “irregular arrivals” (current Home Office-speak) were recognised as mattering to voters. As the Cameron Conservatives noted in 2010, Labour had presided over “the largest influx of people Britain has ever seen.” But after more than two decades of main Party promises, the electorate knows “tackle” is not “solve”.
Ultimately, however, voters have some veto over legal migration. The hubris of “taking back control” was followed by the nemesis of net migration peaking In 2023 at 933,000. The Boris wave may yet sink the Conservative Party. To be bettered by Restore in Manchester last week is troubling. Are the reasons behind the rout being examined?
Illegal entry points to massive state failure and the absence of political will. Every small boat arrival underlines ministers’ intensely relaxed attitude to national security – and the safety of the citizens of this country.
This week Greece’s Prime Minister warned that migration has become “a tool of political coercion.” A rise to 3% GDP will lead to an estimated extra £17 billion a year for defence, “the first duty of government”. But there seems little point in having a new generation of nuclear submarines if the British state is unable to outwit the criminal lowlife that is the people smuggling gangs.
This week Reform launched Operation Fortress. It will deploy the Royal Navy to “defend our shores”. It might well need the few remaining minesweepers to deal with the minefield that will be legal challenges. It also needs buy-in from the French.
There is a wilful naivety which insists that all illegal small boat people are desperate refugees fleeing warzones. It is matched by successive British governments’ touching faith that France will help them solve the migrant problem.
On top of all the other bungs sent across the Channel in recent years, Home Secretary Mahmood threw £662 million of British taxpayers’ money into the French treasury’s coffers in April. When are gullible ministers going to realise that France views Britain as its offshore migrant processing centre? We are its Rwanda.
Last week’s images from Ceuta gave a new perspective to Britain’s illegal immigration problem. Suddenly, many felt like the villagers from tiny Piddington, the Oxfordshire village about to be overwhelmed by a camp for 1,450 migrants.
In a bid to secure Britain’s borders, Kemi Badenoch has promised to leave the European Convention on Human Rights. Is it enough? To end the Ceuta crisis, ECHR signatory Spain deployed the military – and ultimately had Morocco’s cooperation.
Back in 2010, the Conservatives promised “deport first, appeal later.” With current DNA testing, it is surely not too difficult to determine biological country of origin.