Seven long years working both at home and abroad to develop and implement HMG programmes to counter organised crime in the late 1990s and early noughties was by turns compelling, challenging and instructive. My work focused on the drugs trade, but close colleagues were tasked with attacking people smuggling gangs. From what I recall, little if anything of strategic significance was achieved against people trafficking. And, as for the war on drugs, I’m afraid there are still plenty available on our streets at a price that users are prepared to pay.
Does this mean that HMG efforts to counter serious and organised crime are a waste of time. No – of course not. If serious crime groups are allowed to grow, so too does the damage they do to society, not least in terms of increased levels of corruption and violence. Left unchecked, this will begin to undermine and threaten social cohesion and, ultimately, the very fabric of the democratic state. The fight against serious crime is therefore best seen as a containment exercise. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are not going to solve the drivers behind illegal immigration, but they can help to hold back the forces of darkness while the government puts in place a policy framework to manage and mitigate the wider problem.
So, what should the government be focusing on? Judging from what the government have told us thus far, they appear to have a broadly two-pronged strategy: action at home and overseas to ‘smash the gangs’ responsible for the small boats, including closer cooperation (yet to be fully defined) with the EU; and a recently declared intent to remove 14,500 illegal immigrants in the next six months.
Re-badging and restructuring a multi-agency taskforce – as well as improving the level of resources it can draw on – sounds impressive and displays Labour’s high degree of faith in the ability of the agencies to undertake much of the heavy lifting on the government’s behalf. I wish them well. But, the most bitter lesson I recall from my own stint at the coal face is that: ‘Where there is demand for an illegally trafficked product, there will be supply.’ A policy aimed purely at supply cannot work unless it is paired with effective action to attack the demand side of the equation.
I suspect that this is even more important when attacking people trafficking gangs than drugs gangs. The Colombian Medellin, Cali and Norte del Valle cartels were large, complex organisations dealing with billions of dollars’ worth of product. Because they were large, they were also targetable by those agencies who were able to penetrate the protective layers the cartels established around themselves that consisted of networks of corrupt officials, compliant lawyers, financial advisers and extremely violent groups of assassins. But, when major cartels were dismantled, continued western consumer demand ensured that new, smaller, more agile drug trafficking groups stepped into the breach. These groups posed less of a threat to the state – but were still able to move product. Thus, while the war on drugs helped to prevent countries such as Colombia becoming full blown narco-terrorist states, the supply of cocaine to western users (whose appetite for cocaine remains undimmed and who are generally oblivious to the destabilising impact of their weekly drug spend both domestically and upstream) has continued.
By contrast, illegally moving people across the Channel in small boats requires a less sophisticated trafficking operation. Traffickers need to supply migrant hopefuls with a rubber boat, engine, fuel and life jackets. For every low-level organiser who is arrested, another will replace them – provided that the financial incentive is there. For every supply line of rubber boats that is closed, another will open up. Just as for narcotics, effective action to ‘smash’ particular gangs will simply further atomise the trade and lead, as many commentators have observed, to the authorities playing an enduring game of whack-a-mole against barely organised low-level criminals.
This is not to say that there should not be concerted and aggressive action against those organising boat departures from French shores. Given the amount of money paid to the French in recent years, the UK is entitled to expect nothing less. Tough action by the French authorities would in itself directly impact demand. If the prospects of getting to sea are significantly reduced, the incentive to pay the trafficker will also fall. During my time in harness to HMG, the French security service and police were seen as the most effective on the continent. Now they appear less competent at deterring illegal small boat traffic across the Channel than their Belgian neighbours. Either French capability has declined in recent years or their failure to act effectively is a deliberate policy decision. If I were a French resident in the Calais area, I would be furious at the thought that a half-hearted response had led to an influx of would-be illegal migrants into the area. It seems odd that the French only seem to be stepping up their efforts to limit departures now that Labour are in power. One sincerely hopes that neither the authorities in Paris nor London are cynically looking to exploit the issue of illegal migration as part of a broader strategy to undermine or even reverse Brexit.
If the UK government really is committed to a more aggressive returns policy, that would also act as a major deterrent and impact demand. But, having dumped the Rwanda scheme, we have yet to see any hard evidence of a significant change of tack from HMG on returning illegal migrants to a range of principal source or other third countries. Nor is it clear that Labour wish to do any more than disguise the core problem by allowing migrants into the UK by other ‘safe’ routes, irrespective of whether they are genuine refugees or simply drawn to the UK for economic reasons. There has been no suggestion that changes to our system of welfare and benefits are being contemplated to disincentivise illegal immigrants. Finally, there appears to be little government concern about laundering illegal migrants into the workforce – which has an adverse impact on domestic wage levels. Clearly this suits plenty of employers – not least the government. But there is a Dickensian quality to this that wasn’t a good look for the Tories and sits even more awkwardly with Labour.
