More details have emerged about the Tory plan to offshore illegal immigrants in Rwanda. It looks similar to the Dublin system whereby the UK could end up being a net recipient of migrant. The Times carries a unusually decent analysis by Clare Foges. She notes that the more you look at this policy, the more flaws appear. The first step is to transport migrants to a North Yorkshire processing centre where there is “nothing” the government can do to stop them absconding and disappearing into the black economy. Do we really think many will stick around for a one-way ticket to Kigali?

For those that do not abscond, she asks, what criteria will be used to decide who is sent to Rwanda? Apparently the government won’t break up families, so those with children will stay on UK soil; won’t this just create an incentive for people to risk the lives of more children on pathetic dinghies? Won’t those single people who are threatened with deportation just pull any number of levers offered by human rights legislation?

It is pretty much as we have repeatedly pointed out. Unless the Tories are willing to attack the problem of our outdated system of human rights and close down the loopholes illegals can easily exploit, the problem is not going away. And even if Patel sends a few hundred a week to Rwanda (which is highly unlikely), more than six hundred can arrive in a single day. The stated capacity for the transit facility at Linton-on-Ouse is set to be 1200 but will very rapidly grow beyond that.

Foges says the solution is to address the “pull” factor of Britain’s black economy with a national ID card system. Informal work is far more easy to find in the UK than in France. As long as people can work without documents, the UK will remain a magnet for illegal immigration. The old objections about civil liberties, she says, are out of date at a time when we volunteer our data online to whoever wants it. ID cards are practical, popular and essential to securing our borders. “Their introduction is long overdue”.

She is certainly right that we volunteer our official ID for all manner of purposes. You even have to have ID to book a B&B in Bridlington. But it is already the case that employers have to verify the right to work. An ID card system won’t make very much difference if an unscrupulous employer is determined to break the rules. What we need is effective enforcement – of which there is presently very little. But again, even if there were enforcement, the Home Office still struggles to remove those with no right to be here and is subject to the same human rights challenges.

The Rwanda policy has gone down well with the Tory faithful, just in time for the local elections, but it won’t take long for the wheels to fall off. Pretty soon we’ll be back where we started. New reception facilities will fill up fast and hotels will still be used as overspill.

Foges has it that we must turn back the boats, citing Australia’s success, but there is huge difference between turning back an ocean-going craft and a flimsy “half inflated” dinghy. Pushback tactics are dangerous, and even the Royal Navy would hesitate to put civilian live in danger at sea. The real issue here is French intransigence. Any policy requires the cooperation of France.

On that score, the French are unlikely to cooperate because they’re French. We could suspend all fishing rights for French boats but they would no doubt retaliate by blocking the ports, and then we have a full blown trade war on our hands. Nobody wins from that. Service interruptions over the channel are already impacting British trade.

Ultimately the Tory plan is not going to work (and they know it). It will work insofar as it allows Johnson and Patel to shift the blame to the “woke” human rights/open borders blob, but we are still no closer to a solution. Patel’s borders bill is still choked up in parliamentary process and probably won’t survive legal challenges unless the government is willing to quite the Refugee Convention or suspend elements of it. Which it isn’t.

Elsewhere in The Times we learn that the number of non-EU migrants coming to the UK to work and study soared in the first year of Britain’s post-Brexit immigration system. Home Office immigration figures for the whole of last year revealed there were 239,987 work-related visas granted, 25 per cent higher than in 2019, the last full year before the pandemic. Less than a tenth were EU migrants, who had to obtain a visa from January last year after the end of freedom of movement.

The main driver of the sharp increase in work-related immigration since 2019 came from migrants from outside the EU. Indian, Pakistani, Nigerian and Filipino workers accounted for most of the increase. Rather than attempting to restructure the economy from low wage exploitation, the government is looking further afield for a supply of exploitable labour. This is not the “brightest and best” Patel promised.

It should be clear now to all but the dimmest that the Tories have no intention of getting a grip on immigration, nor have they learned any lessons from Brexit. We are replacing EU workers with settlers who are the least likely to integrate, creating more economic and social pressures.

There are already a million or more illegal immigrants working off the books in the UK economy, and there is nothing to suggest the Tories are getting their act together. The Tories are too afraid of the wailing from the liberal establishment to do what is necessary to secure Britain’s borders. The Tories are trying to con us with the Rwanda agreement and Patel’s borders bill, but it’s all smoke and mirrors.

The immigration issue was not settled by Brexit. Managing our borders is only part of what needs to be done, but more must be done to ensure a hostile environment for those with no right to be here. That requires regular inspections of factories, farms and local businesses and a Home Office that doesn’t flinch from deporting thousands every week. That demands more resources for local enforcement and the removal of civil servants if they frustrate the process.

At the very least Britain should be filling a up a large passenger aircraft every single. If India and Pakistan refuse to take their illegals back then we must close down all visas and flight from there and channels for aid remittances should be shut down the same way we’ve closed down payments to Russia. A failure to get serious about immigration will result in more crime and civil unrest later down the line, and a bigger right wing backlash. The way to avoid a far right government in the future is to elect one that is serious about immigration now. Enforcing borders is not a far right proposition. It is one of the most basic obligations of any government.