More than 50 Tory MPs have signed a letter to Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak highlighting the need for emergency legislation to deal with the Channel migrant crisis, UK media reported.
Illegal Channel crossings have become a "Gordian Knot [seemingly unsolvable problem] that needs cutting with a simple policy," stressed the group of Conservative backbenchers - including Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the influential 1922 Committee - and a number of former cabinet ministers.
The letter argues that those who claim they are "victims of human trafficking" should be returned "to their homes in the villages from which they came".
"If they have really been taken against their will, then they could not reasonably object to being returned to their own homes. The quirks in our modern slavery laws that prevent this are clearly in defiance of the aims of that law and should be removed," the letter was quoted as saying.
'Abusing the Process'
Britain's government ought to take measures to ensure that "economic migrants" attempting to enter the UK while travelling from "safe countries" such as Albania, should be returned more quickly, the letter's signatories added.
If the UK authorities were to set in place a "straightforward and legally workable” method of dealing with the migrant influx, this would serve as a "very strong deterrent" for any illegals considering embarking upon the journey across the Channel, said the group of MPs, which also included former cabinet ministers Liam Fox and Esther McVey.
The MPs believe that the country's immigration systems, originally "designed to provide altruistic support to people who legitimately ask for our help", were now suffering "intolerable stress" with an inundation of people "abusing" the process.
The UK Conservative party has been struggling and - until now - miserably failing to tackle the migrant issue, which could ultimately come back to haunt the party at the next election. The issue was further thrust into the headlines recently amid reports highlighting the deplorable conditions at the country’s overcrowded Manston migrant processing center in Kent. The Home Office site had taken in 4,000 arrivals although the capacity was said to be 1,600, and housed families with children in "utterly inadequate" facilities. After reports of staff facing "threatening and violent behavior" from frustrated migrants, and purported outbreaks of infectious diseases such as diphtheria, the site was emptied.
Detainees inside the Manston short-term holding centre for migrants, wave to members of the media outside, near Ramsgate, south east England on November 3, 2022.
© DANIEL LEAL
However, several of the migrants who have been moved from the Manston center to other parts of the country are said to have been suffering from suspected diphtheria, with one man there reportedly dying of the disease. With the UK Health Security Agency set to release data on the issue later on Monday, Home Secretary Suella Braverman acknowledged that the government had "failed to control our borders". But, having said that, she immediately deflected the blame, adding:
"I tell you who's at fault. It's very clear who's at fault. It's the people who are breaking our rules, coming here illegally, exploiting vulnerable people and trying to reduce the generosity of the British people. That's who's at fault," Braverman said in parliament.
Seeking to score credit with voters for finally tackling the migrant crisis head-on, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently praised the newly signed rehashed deal with France to crack down on illegal migration.
"The absolute priority that British people have right now, as do I, is to grip illegal migration. I made that commitment that I would grip it in the summer and I can tell you all, I have spent more time working on that than anything else other than the autumn statement over the past couple of weeks," Sunak told reporters as he travelled to the G20 summit, held in Bali on 15 and 16 November.
The accord that Home Secretary Suella Braverman signed with French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin require London’s annual payments to Paris to control illegal immigration to rise by 15 percent from €62.7 million (£54.8Mln) to €72 million (£63Mln).
France, for its part, will increase the number of police officers patrolling the English Channel coast, equipped with surveillance drones and night vision optics, by 40 percent, from 200 to 280, and invest in more security, surveillance technology and foot patrols with dogs, at the ports and Channel Tunnel terminal at Calais.
The number of people making the perilous crossing between Britain and the continent has risen steadily in recent years, with more than 40,000 illegal immigrants reaching the UK this year. The UK and France have long engaged in a blame game over the failure to crack down on the arrivals. But no matter how much the West would like to accuse such migrants of fleeing their “failed states” to seek a better life, the exodus stems directly from the military intervention by the US and its NATO allies. Europe witnessed the arrival of around 1.3 million people in 2015 to request asylum in the wake of the US and NATO-led military interventions in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan.