Alp Mehmet is a former British diplomat and the Chairman of Migration Watch UK, an independent think tank, campaigning for significant reductions in immigration. The Illegal Migration Bill is about to come into force in the UK. It has been designed to stop small boats carrying illegal migrants from crossing the English Channel, and give the government further powers to detain and remove individuals who enter the country unlawfully. Alp Mehmet briefly talked to us about the dangers of rising numbers of legal and illegal immigrants.
The Illegal Migration Bill is set to come into force in the UK with the aim of deterring migrants from entering the UK illegally via the English Channel. Do you think the government has done enough?
The Illegal Migration Bill becomes an Act today [July 20th] when it gains Royal Assent. The rigour with which it is implemented will determine the extent to which it deters migrants from making the perilous journey across the English Channel from safe France. In my judgement it will be some time before the new Act has any impact and I expect the numbers crossing to continue at least for the time being. Crossings are currently at about the rate they were in 2022, when 45,500 crossed. I expect this year’s final number to be about the same.
As you state on your website, there is an asylum backlog exceeding 100,000 cases, but of the 20,000 people considered for deportation between January 2021 and September 2022, only 21 people were actually removed from the country. Why are the authorities reluctant to take action?
The reasons vary and include an inability to disprove [asylum] claims; [to] persuade home countries to accept and document their citizens; international treaties and conventions (like the European Convention on Human Rights) to which we are a party; and interventions in the legal system. For these reasons, and knowing the likelihood that the legal process will conclude in favour of asylum seekers, officials will often short-circuit the system by granting asylum.
Legal migration is also on the rise. Despite Brexit and the promise to reduce the number of workers entering the UK, Britain saw a net immigration of 606,000 people in 2022, an all-time high. Why has the government failed in this regard?
There are a number of reasons but the main ones are the failure to control the inflow and a very loose points-based system introduced following Brexit.
According to your projections, the UK’s population is on course to rise by nearly 16 million by 2046. What kind of burden does this put on the country?
Such a massive and rapid increase in population can only lead to a worsening of the problems we now face in housing, the NHS, and other services. Queues at GP surgeries will grow. Integration of new arrivals of this magnitude will be even more difficult; this will increase risks to the cohesion within our society that we have always enjoyed.
According to the chairmen of Migration Watch UK, Alp Mehmet and Lord Green of Deddington,
Our central concern is the current massive level of immigration which, if allowed to continue, would mean that the population of the UK would increase by 10 million in 25 years, 82% of it due to future migrants and their children. Migration is, of course, a natural part of an open economy and society but it must be sustainable and must have the assent of the British public—yet many in the media and political class have long dismissed widespread public concern and the strong view of a clear majority that the current level of net migration of around a quarter of a million a year must be significantly reduced.
