Suella Braverman, the new home secretary, has instructed Home Office staff to stop all small boat Channel crossings. Ending the crossings was also her predecessor’s number one priority but, since coming into power in 2019, this government has seen the number of Channel small boat crossings treble.
This article explores why the government’s failure to create safe routes for those fleeing Afghanistan has exacerbated the problem. Further articles will address the problem of Albanian asylum seekers and how a punitive approach to tackling a humanitarian problem is unlikely to work.
The scale of the problem
In 2018, 299 people crossed the Channel to the UK by small boat. By 2020 this figure had risen to 8,466 and by 2021 to 28,526. By the end of June 2022, 12,747 had already crossed since the start of the year and, in the week of 5–11 September, there were 576 people making the journey.
Crossings are likely to continue while the weather is good and often continue at a high rate right through November. It looks as though last year’s figures will be exceeded, by some considerable margin, and the number of people arriving in this way shows no signs of reducing.
Following changes in border control in 2003 and the fencing of the routes into the Calais port, refugee arrival in the UK on lorries dwindled and a small boat route was established. At first and for many years, the route operated in an ad hoc way, using cheap second-hand boats of dubious provenance and seaworthiness. But as the trade grew, the boats have been imported new (from China primarily) and there are some indications that they are ‘bespoke’ for the journey, being able to accommodate more passengers than a normal dinghy with ‘unnecessary’ elements removed to reduce costs.
It is a profitable business.
As land routes are increasingly blocked by walls and fences, for example the recently completed border fences between Tűrkiye and Greece, sea routes are used. The latest (September 2022) figures from the UN indicate that there have been 96,480 refugee arrivals in the EU so far this year, of which the vast majority (90,456) came by boat.
The UK is the outlier
The number of refugees entering Europe via the Mediterranean per year has stabilised around 123,000, although it was much reduced in 2019 with Covid. The numbers have dropped to their present level from an exceptional high of 1,032,408 in 2015 and are now well below their pre-2015 levels. The numbers would be higher, but many barriers have since been erected to stop migration flows.
Meanwhile, as the number of refugees coming into Europe (excluding those from Ukraine) has stabilised, the numbers crossing the Channel have increased – and substantially.
The government repeatedly pushes the line that all those crossing the Channel are economic migrants or illegal immigrants, citing, for example, an upsurge in the number of people from Albania currently making the crossing. Official statistics indicate they account for about 17%, but recent press reports say it is closer to 60%, though these figures are disputed. While there is undoubtedly a problem with the rise in Albanians seeking asylum in the UK, it is being used by the government to cover up for its failure to provide safe routes for those fleeing Afghanistan.
The rise in the number of Afghans crossing the Channel
In 2018, three Afghans arrived in the UK in small boats. In 2021 there were 1,437 for the whole of the year, even after the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in August. For the first half of 2022 there were 2,066 Afghan arrivals. If this rate continues (and it is likely to have been exceeded given the daily numbers crossing the Channel), Afghans coming into the UK by small boat might amount to 20% of all Mediterranean crossings for 2022.
Over the years, asylum claims made in the UK have not exceeded more than 5% of the European total and, if these projections are realised, this would represent a massive change.
UK’s broken promises
The British Government promised in August 2021, through the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme, to protect those who had supported British forces and governmental, judicial and public services in Afghanistan:
“Those who assisted UK efforts in Afghanistan and stood up for values such as democracy, women’s rights, freedom of speech and the rule of law – as well as at-risk women, girls, and members of minority groups.”
It has failed to meet its promise.
Many of those who supported British forces and institutions remain in hiding, while others have fled the country. The government says that it has helped 21,000 British nationals and Afghans who have fled the Taliban, but it is unable to provide any statistics about how many of those are in addition to those brought out from Afghanistan under Operation Pitting in August 2021.
There is no evidence in government press releases, reports, statistics or answers to parliamentary questions that a single person who has applied from Afghanistan or has fled Afghanistan has been helped by the UK Government either to get to the UK to apply for asylum or be granted asylum from a country to which they have fled.
Occasionally we hear about those who have been refused asylum such as the female judge who sentenced many Taliban members and who is now in hiding in Pakistan with her son. She has relatives in the UK and is self-financing but was still refused. There are simply no safe routes for Afghan nationals to get to the UK. The only option is via the Mediterranean and the Channel.
Afghans are undeterred by the obstacles
The journey from Afghanistan to the UK is perilous. As the Taliban conquered Afghanistan, people fled south to Pakistan before heading north through Iran and Tűrkiye. The journey requires crossing high and freezing mountain passes; avoiding or bribing border guards and ruthless bandits; finding places to hide from the Turkish police; dodging Libyan Mediterranean patrols and the push-back activities of Frontex (the EU border force) and the Greek navy; and, travelling across the length of Europe just to reach a launch point for the UK.
To get to the UK requires money and the use of ‘expert guides’ or ‘people smugglers’ and those that the UK government calls ‘criminal gangs’ are often viewed as saviours or friends.
To date, the UK has depended on the EU, in the form of Frontex policing the external borders, paying Libya to capture and detain refugees caught in the Mediterranean and new walls and fences at the EU boundary, coupled with France and its Channel patrols to minimise the number of refugees entering the UK.
Afghans who have made it to Northern France are undeterred by the short Channel crossing. They have already faced death, perhaps several times, and there is no return journey for them; they have invested their lives and their savings in making it. The UK owes these people sanctuary and a welcome, and Afghans know this.
Without the provision of safe routes, refugees from Afghanistan will continue to arrive on Kent’s shores and Braverman will have no more impact on Channel crossings that her predecessor.
