Youtor
The UK HAS FALLEN
>> YOUR LINK HERE: ___ http://youtube.com/watch?v=gYmzdt8uyMg
In his first major speech as UK prime minister, at the start of 2023, a hopeful Rishi Sunak announced “five promises” to show that his government would “always reflect the people’s priorities”. Alongside familiar pledges to reduce inflation and grow the economy, there was a bold new promise: to “stop the boats”. • “We will pass new laws to stop small boats, making sure that if you come to this country illegally, you are detained and swiftly removed,” Sunak announced. “No tricks, no ambiguity, we’re either delivering for you or we’re not,” he told reporters – in an upbeat mood and a crisp white shirt, a long way from the rain-sodden and crestfallen prime minister we saw announcing the election last month. • Colleagues were startled by his decision to stake so much of his reputation on a pledge that was clearly unachievable. “It was obviously stupid to say you’re going to stop the boats, when you’re very unlikely to be able to,” a long-term Home Office staffer told me, recalling his surprise at the announcement. “Call me cynical, but I assumed it was just a slogan to put clear blue water between him and the Labour party. I’m not sure he ever believed he could actually do it.” • But Sunak doubled down. By March 2023, he was standing behind a new branded lectern decorated with a “stop the boats” logo. • In May 2023, he said: “I’m relentlessly focused on stopping the boats. That’s one of my five priorities, and we’re doing absolutely everything we can to do that.” In August, he filmed a slick “stop the boats” video message, against a soundtrack of gently beating drums and the splintering noises of immigration officers breaking down someone’s front door with a battering ram. • Eighteen months on, tricks and ambiguity are all that remains of Sunak’s bold pledge. The number of crossings dipped slightly in 2023, but by 24 June the total arrivals by small boats this year stood at 12,901, higher than the total for the same period in any of the previous four years. Images of crowded, dangerous vessels making their way to the UK remain regular features on news bulletins, highlighting (depending on your perspective) that desperate people are prepared to risk their lives to travel to the UK or that the post-Brexit Conservative government has failed to take back control of its borders. • • It has long been a trick of immigration politics for governments to signal their “toughness” with punitive commitments to crack down on illegal migration, in order to distract from parallel policies that have increased legal immigration numbers to meet the requirements of a growing economy. Under New Labour, tough talk about “false asylum seekers” was often an attempted smokescreen for rising figures of legal migration. But no government has fumbled the issue so dramatically as Sunak’s. As a result, the small boats debacle has become emblematic of this latest troubled chapter of Conservative rule. • Public dissatisfaction with the government’s handling of immigration is at a record high, according to the thinktank British Future, which has been running surveys on this question since 2015. Among the 69% of people who say they are dissatisfied, Sunak’s failure to “stop the boats” is the most cited reason for their disapproval. • Anyone who has looked at the Conservative record on immigration since 2010 will not be surprised by this breathtaking gulf between rhetoric and reality. The story of Conservative immigration policy is a tale of ambitious targets and harsh anti-immigration policies that have not resulted in reducing immigration – illegal or legal. Instead, immigration into the UK has climbed to record levels. • #unitedkingdom • #globalnews • #foodsecurity
#############################
