Tackle migration at source not just at the border

WITH migrant channel crossings nearing 900 a day, you don’t need a government report to know the current plan isn’t working.

- By Tobias Ellwood

Deterrents aren't deterring. Deportation threats aren’t sticking. The numbers are too big, the system too slow, the routes too fluid. And despite endless political promises, the boats keep coming.

Why? Because we're only fighting migration from one end of the chain. The conversation is stuck at the border. But the real challenge, the strategic one, starts far further upstream. Why are people leaving in the first place? Why are they handing over their life savings to criminal gangs for a dangerous crossing to Europe?

The answer is simple. Life back home is often miserable, unsafe and without hope.

With no prospect of improvements in security, the economy or governance, people make the only choice left: to leave.

And much as we'd like to point fingers at French authorities, this is a European issue, as the 2024 Eurostat asylum seeker data makes clear: Germany: 230,695, Spain: 164,010, Italy: 151,120, France: 130,860, and Britain: 108,138.

Europe, we have a problem. And it’s not going away unless we're willing to engage where it starts - at the sharp end. Here’s the irony: that’s exactly what we used to do. Upstream engagement, overseas aid, soft power... Call it what you like, it worked.