The British people have never voted for open borders, in fact, they have always rejected mass migration.
The Home Secretary Suella Braverman jetted off to France this week to sign yet another agreement with her French counterpart, the Minister of Interior Gérald Darmanin, to reduce the number of illegal migrants crossing from Calais to Dover. Similar agreements had been signed under various failed Home Secretaries of the past, in 2010, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. But this one will be different they protest, apparently.
What was agreed was different, for the first time British border officers will be working on French soil with their French counterparts. According to the Home Office publication of the agreement, the British officers will ‘increase joint understanding of the threat through first-hand observations, strengthen migrant debriefing and increase information sharing on the threat‘. No mention of them patrolling French beaches and no mention of them seeking out and popping inflatable dinghies. It seems the officers will be stationed at their desks eating croissants with the French.
As is the case with almost everything in British politics, nothing will change, and nothing will happen. Even Prime Minister Rishi Sunak doesn’t think his own agreement will reduce the numbers, he refused to guarantee they would fall next year. This year alone more than 40,000 illegal migrants have come to Britain, you can track all immigration numbers using our dashboard.
| Year | Recorded attempts to enter Britain illegally (Small boat arrivals, Air Travel, Detections) |
| 2018 | 13,377 |
| 2019 | 16,281 |
| 2020 | 17,000 |
| 2021 | 36,812 |
| 2022 | 45,756 |
| 2023 | 2,070*so far |
| Total | 124,335 |
But it’s not just illegal migration that seems to have an open-door policy, all migration into Britain is de-facto uncontrolled. Sunak has dropped his leadership campaign pledge to cap the number of refugees, hence uncontrolled. 1.15 million people entered the UK from June 2021 to June 2022 legally, the highest ever number since records began, hence uncontrolled. Like his predecessors, Sunak is making false promises and commitments that he seeks to see ‘get migration down over time‘. Only when you realise the British ruling class sees no issue with millions of people coming into this country can you step back and accept that open borders are coming.
A few days before Braverman signed the agreement with the French, a prominent British businessman and Conservative party donor made headlines when he cried that 1.1 million migrants a year was not enough and ‘Not the Brexit I wanted‘. Simon Wolfson is a Conservative peer and Chief Executive of Next who was calling on the government to make it easier for migrants to come to Britain to work. The full quote is even more revealing, ‘In respect of immigration, it’s definitely not the Brexit that I wanted, or indeed, many of people who voted Brexit wanted‘.
There is no doubt that Mr Wolfson is correct, many of the people he knows who voted for Brexit probably did want more immigration, big businesses are drawn to cheap labour, hence the importation of foreign workers who will work for less. Indeed, his many friends in the Conservative Party also believed in this specific vision of Brexit, people only wanted the option to control immigration, they are perfectly happy for millions to flow through their borders, just as long as they have the option to say no. People like Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Liz Truss are content to throw open our borders in the misplaced belief that immigration is an economic good, Liz Truss even wanted to drop the pretence that the Party was committed to lower immigration.
In her frustration, the former Home secretary Priti Patel allegedly compiled a 15-page dossier that detailed every minister who asked her to soften her immigration stance. Given she was in charge when 1.1 million people passed through the borders, not sure how much further she could soften.
But Brexit was not won by the votes of rich businessmen or the Conservative Party, it was won by everyday Britons who wanted significant reductions in immigration after decades of low wages, cultural and ethnic change, low economic growth, record house prices, and overstretched public services.
In their wicked perversion of Brexit the open borders ruling class which consists of almost all the Conservative Party and Labour Party, have flung Britain’s borders open, with no hope that they will be closed anytime soon.