Damien McElroy is London bureau chief at The National
November 27, 2021
With the tragedy in the English Channel that cost 27 people their lives, the migrant crisis on the northern European coast last week became much more serious.
The divisions between UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron, which spilled into the open in its wake, show that this is not a purely humanitarian catastrophe. Critics of Mr Johnson seldom give enough credit to how the incompetence of his top team blunts the worst policies of his government. It is a mark of this incompetence that the migrant crisis is so important to current politics.
Unfortunately, that also means the migrant tensions are likely to be prolonged and increasingly toxic – not to mention dangerous for all those caught up in the situation.
UK Home Secretary Priti Patel, who oversees immigration policy, would dearly love to be acclaimed as a hardliner. As a result, the rhetoric is totally out of proportion. The number of people who have come to the UK through the refugee process is just 0.6 per cent of the whole population. The numbers that have arrived in the UK by crossing the English Channel this year is 25,000. Add to that about 16,000 Afghans who were evacuated in the summer.
This is all happening against a backdrop of net migration into the UK slumping from about 200,000 – where it has been hovering for many years – to just over 30,000 in 2020. Indeed, the toll of the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit have changed the dynamic for migration trends in the UK.
A jet ski is inspected by police officers after being brought in to Dungeness, Kent. Migrants trying to reach the UK across one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes appear to have used a 25-year-old jet ski and kayaks as record numbers try to reach Britain. PA
An RNLI boat brings the jet ski to shore at Dungeness. PA
A police officer inspects the vehicle. PA
The jet ski can travel for about 10 hours on a full tank, according to reviews. PA
Border Force officers carry a small boat. A number of incidents involving small boats have been reported in the Channel this month. PA
A storage yard in Dover for the dinghies, ribs and rowing boats previously used by migrants to cross the English Channel from France, pictured in August last year. Getty Images
Dramatic "solutions" pour from Mr Johnson's team and Mrs Patel. One such solution involves ministers scrambling to find a (poor) country to accept British deportations. This is because Brexit – and Mrs Patel was one of the earliest champions of a complete break with the EU in the British political mainstream – has cost London. Only a handful of people have been deported to European countries this year.
Competence has not accompanied this search.
Last week, officials conceded that no country had agreed to enter talks with the UK about accepting deportations. Conservative backbenchers admire the Australian arrangement with the Pacific island of Nauru to act as a migrant processing centre. This has killed the people-smuggling trade that took Afghans, Sri Lankans and others on long boat journeys to reach Australia.
The UK is now eyeing British-controlled territories around the world. One leading figure proposed South Georgia in the Falkland Islands last week, but that is so far away that passenger planes could not reach there and back without refuelling. St Helena off the coast of Africa has a new airport, but a regular deportation corridor with the place where the French military leader Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled is also unlikely.
Mrs Patel is also looking to push back the migrants in the Channel into French waters. In fact, a new bill is going through Parliament to make this law. But its proponents fail to appreciate that this is only something that would make sense in international waters – and that the Dover Strait, where the migrants are crossing, is too narrow for international waters. A migrant boat immediately transits from French waters into British waters. So a pushback would either be an encroachment into French waters or the migrants would have legally reached the UK.
The list of contradictions grows with every twist of the British narrative on migrants.
A clamour has emerged to scrap the Human Rights Act so that lawyers cannot use the court to stop a pushback policy. But these statements are made in seeming ignorance that the policy would contravene such international conventions as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, plus the Search and Rescue Convention.
Britain's Home Secretary Priti Patel making a statement on the crisis in the English Channel. AFP
More questions concerning competence were raised when an internal UK paper suggested that the pushbacks would, at best, turn around 1 per cent of the boats bound for the UK.
Every time Mrs Patel answers questions on the new legislation, she parades it as a dividing line in British politics. The key issue for her is that migration is not based on the need for a safe haven as a refugee. Rather, it is a matter of push and pull factors. People are pushed to places such as the UK by conflict, climate change and lack of opportunity.
The UK has pull factors of prosperity, cosmopolitan population mix and the English language. But migrants on the way through Europe barely touch the sides. Once inside the UK, more misery is to be piled on the already broken resettlement system. For instance, hardly any of the Afghans brought to the UK have been able to leave hotels for a settled life yet.
Now Mrs Patel's bill is demarcating asylum seekers in different baskets. If they are from countries where they could have claimed asylum, the people involved will not be entitled to the same support as those who arrive in the UK as a first country of refuge. Creating a two-tier, and thus inferior, category of asylum seeker must be the worst idea of all.
In sum, the country can't throw people out, or stop them entering or support them with dignity. I am not sure how much more incompetent the UK policy could get.
New Zealand police began closer scrutiny of social media and online communities after the attacks on two mosques in March, the country's top officer said.
The killing of 51 people in Christchurch and wounding of more than 40 others shocked the world. Brenton Tarrant, a suspected white supremacist, was accused of the killings. His trial is ongoing and he denies the charges.
Mike Bush, commissioner of New Zealand Police, said officers looked closely at how they monitored social media in the wake of the tragedy to see if lessons could be learned.
“We decided that it was fit for purpose but we need to deepen it in terms of community relationships, extending them not only with the traditional community but the virtual one as well," he told The National.
"We want to get ahead of attacks like we suffered in New Zealand so we have to challenge ourselves to be better."
The number of asylum applications in the UK has reached a new record high, driven by those illegally entering the country in small boats crossing the English Channel.
A total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the UK in the year to June 2025, the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001.
Asylum seekers and their families can be housed in temporary accommodation while their claim is assessed.
The Home Office provides the accommodation, meaning asylum seekers cannot choose where they live.
When there is not enough housing, the Home Office can move people to hotels or large sites like former military bases.
Cricket World Cup League Two: Nepal, Oman, United States tri-series, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu
Fixtures
Wednesday February 5, Oman v Nepal
Thursday, February 6, Oman v United States
Saturday, February 8, United States v Nepal
Sunday, February 9, Oman v Nepal
Tuesday, February 11, Oman v United States
Wednesday, February 12, United States v Nepal
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre turbo
Power: 181hp
Torque: 230Nm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Starting price: Dh79,000
On sale: Now
BRIEF SCORES
England 353 and 313-8 dec
(B Stokes 112, A Cook 88; M Morkel 3-70, K Rabada 3-85)
(J Bairstow 63, T Westley 59, J Root 50; K Maharaj 3-50) South Africa 175 and 252
(T Bavuma 52; T Roland-Jones 5-57, J Anderson 3-25)
(D Elgar 136; M Ali 4-45, T Roland-Jones 3-72)
Result: England won by 239 runs
England lead four-match series 2-1
Favourite book: Give and Take by Adam Grant, one of his professors at University of Pennsylvania
Favourite place to travel: Home in Kuwait.
Favourite place in the UAE: Al Qudra lakes
ULTRA PROCESSED FOODS
- Carbonated drinks, sweet or savoury packaged snacks, confectionery, mass-produced packaged breads and buns
- Margarines and spreads; cookies, biscuits, pastries, cakes, and cake mixes, breakfast cereals, cereal and energy bars
- Energy drinks, milk drinks, fruit yoghurts and fruit drinks, cocoa drinks, meat and chicken extracts and instant sauces
- Infant formulas and follow-on milks, health and slimming products such as powdered or fortified meal and dish substitutes
- Many ready-to-heat products including pre-prepared pies and pasta and pizza dishes, poultry and fish nuggets and sticks, sausages, burgers, hot dogs, and other reconstituted meat products, powdered and packaged instant soups, noodles and desserts
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11 What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time. TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The two riders are among several riders in the UAE to receive the top payment of £10,000 under the Thank You Fund of £16 million (Dh80m), which was announced in conjunction with Deliveroo's £8 billion (Dh40bn) stock market listing earlier this year.
The £10,000 (Dh50,000) payment is made to those riders who have completed the highest number of orders in each market.
There are also riders who will receive payments of £1,000 (Dh5,000) and £500 (Dh2,500).
All riders who have worked with Deliveroo for at least one year and completed 2,000 orders will receive £200 (Dh1,000), the company said when it announced the scheme.
Marwan Lutfi says the core fundamentals that drive better payment behaviour and can improve your credit score are:
1. Make sure you make your payments on time;
2. Limit the number of products you borrow on: the more loans and credit cards you have, the more it will affect your credit score;
3. Don't max out all your debts: how much you maximise those credit facilities will have an impact. If you have five credit cards and utilise 90 per cent of that credit, it will negatively affect your score.
Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
Torrijos Palace dome
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened. He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia. Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”. Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
