The only sensible response to Shabana Mahmood’s crackdown on illegal migration is, what took you so long? The second is, let’s see how it works out. The third is, how about the actual problem?
The Home Secretary’s proposals are based on those adopted by Denmark, which has seen the number of illegal arrivals in the country plummet in ten years. Asylum won’t be granted to applicants permanently but will be reviewed every 30 months – always supposing that we can summon up sufficient numbers of qualified staff to review cases, let alone those necessary to detain and deport individuals whose countries are considered safe enough to return to. That’s quite a big ask for a department that can’t keep track of prisoners. Yet this programme is far more plausible than Yvette Cooper’s ineffective one-in, one-out scheme with France which went wrong within days.
