A group of migrants making a hazardous journey across the English Channel to the UK. Britain is evidently an attractive destination Steve Finn
Britain has the most illegal immigrants in Europe, according to a new study led by experts from Oxford University. The MIrreM project estimates there could be as many as 745,000 illegal immigrants living here already, meaning that they make up more than 1 in every 100 people living here.
Although Britain is sometimes criticised for taking fewer migrants than other countries, these figures show that we are becoming an outlier in Europe in the other direction. Not only has legal immigration soared in recent years but our illegal population is also much larger than that of nearby countries.
Britain is unusual in being an island, so getting here ought to be harder than it is to get to other countries in Europe. We can see that in the way illegal immigrants often have to smuggle themselves here in vans or over the Channel in small boats. This is more difficult than crossing most land borders.
These things taken together mean that the pull factors for illegal immigrants to come to Britain must be higher than elsewhere in Europe. The ubiquity of the English language is one element. The existence of numerous diaspora groups here is another because, as Paul Collier has shown, immigrants tend to go to places where there are existing communities for them to join. The main reasons why we are so popular however must be related to our permissive job market and the failure of the authorities to guard our borders.
The French have long blamed our job market for attracting the illegal immigrants who transit through France. The most infamous example are apps like Deliveroo, who allowed workers to share their profiles with others with minimal checks on documentation. That made it easy for illegal immigrants to work here. Although the last government brought in changes, it remains easy for illegal immigrants to work in the black economy.
Some of the rest of the blame has to fall on the failure of successive governments to get a grip on immigration. That the Home Office fails to estimate the number of illegals and lets academics do their job instead is indicative of an unwillingness to grapple with the issue.
Increasing the number of immigration checks, cracking down on lax working rules, and introducing new measures like ID cards could help reveal the scale of the problem. Many illegals are almost impossible to remove to their home countries however because of human rights law, so unless politicians want to risk an amnesty and attract more illegal immigration, they will also need to reform the law. Conservatives like Robert Jenrick and Boris Johnson are talking about leaving the European Court of Human Rights as an initial step. Whether the Labour government is willing to take the steps necessary to deal with the issue remains to be seen.
Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/07/uk-illegal-immigration-europe-highest-proportion-mirrem/
The strong pull factors mean we have even more than Germany