More migrants have crossed the Channel illegally during Shabana Mahmood’s short tenure as home secretary than under any other home secretary since 2022—despite Labour’s promises to crack down on border crossings.
Mahmood has overseen 10,000 crossings in just 66 days, outdoing her Labour predecessor, Yvette Cooper, by just over a week.
The last time this record was beaten (in an impressive 43 days!) was when Conservative Suella Braverman was home secretary in 2022, which is ironic given all of her (questionable) talk about the importance of getting a grip on mass—legal and illegal—migration.
The Maildescribed Mahmood’s effort as “grim,” noting that under her watch, 2,000 migrants crossed the Channel from France—a safe country—in just four days. Over the same period, deportations of foreign criminals have been minimal, despite ministers proving late last month that they could remove more migrants if they really wanted to.
A government source also told the paper that the record was “unfortunate,” which is somewhat of an understatement.
But Labour proved again over the weekend that it really doesn’t want to control Britain’s borders, as MPs urged Mahmood against adopting tougher measures, said to be based on Denmark’s immigration system. The government is reportedly looking at stricter rules on family reunificationon and restricting certain refugees to a temporary stay in the UK, but members of the party have bashed these plans as “hardcore” and “far-right.”
Considering whether Mahmood will “be prepared to go far enough, or be allowed to by the party and migrant support groups,” Migration Watch chairman Alp Mehmet said: “I doubt it.” He told europeanconservative.com:
The left of the party has already called out the proposals as racist, before having any idea of what they are. Moreover, if primary legislation is needed, it’s likely that any tough proposals will be watered down as any Bill makes its way through Parliament. And it will be another year after it’s coming into force before we know what the impact has been, which I don’t believe will be great.
Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.
