Why should Britain offer asylum to people who would rather not make their home in France?

No one likes to have their holiday cut short, especially at this time of year (though I’ve never understood the desire to up sticks and head for foreign lands during the Christmas break instead of staying at home by the fire, but each to his own). So amid the inevitable criticism of Home Secretary Sajid Javid for his less than dynamic response to events in the English Channel, we should find some seasonal sympathy for him and his family at having their holiday in South Africa ruined.

But first, some advice to the media on how this latest story of illegal immigration is being covered. First of all, this is not a “crisis”, it is an event, or a thing, a happening, a development. Calling everything a crisis may help viewing figures and online clicks, but it is one of the most frequently misused nouns in the English language and leaves us grasping for the appropriate way to describe an actual crisis should one rear its head. Stop it.

Second, I’m struck by the degree of background knowledge that some journalists seem to have about the origins of our newly-arrived residents who have made at least part of the journey across the Channel before being picked up (as was always the plan) by the British authorities and delivered safely to Blighty. “Six Iranian men”, we are told, made landfall over the weekend and were discovered in Kent. To be more accurate, this should have read, “Six men claiming to be from Iran…”

This seems unnecessarily verbose but it is important: the success of an asylum claim will depend on which country the applicant is trying to escape. If you are an economic migrant hoping to reach Britain in order to secure a better standard of living for you and your family (an entirely understandable and laudable aspiration, incidentally), and you happen to hail from what might be described as a “safe” country – let’s take Egypt as an imperfect example – then it’s quite logical to claim that you come from Iran instead.

People traffickers, who are undoubtedly among the most odious gangsters ever to have crawled out from beneath a rock, cruelly exploiting the desperation of others and feeding them a catalogue of lies in order to extort their life savings from them, advise their “clients” which countries they should claim to be from, in order to fool the system and the British authorities. They give them tips on how to prolong their stay, even in the event of a failed asylum application, and helpfully destroy any passports and travel documents their unfortunate victims happen to be carrying, in order to perpetuate the claim that they hail from a particular country.

There is a nervousness and hyper-sensitivity around the issues of asylum and immigration – two issues that would, in a normal, functional society be discussed entirely separately – that leads to headlines about one Church of England bishop or another warning politicians that they must consider the humanity of these migrants and not just the political challenge they have helped create. In other words (and the archbishops would say as much if they were suddenly taken by an urge for directness rather than subtle hints), if they reach our shores by whatever means they should be allowed to stay here.

It is by such good intentions that the road to hell is regularly resurfaced. For the law of unintended consequences would mean that such an approach would mean jackpot day, every day, for the traffickers. Custom would increase tenfold (at least), the costs would go up, the number of failed and fatal voyages would go up. And all the while, the market for the traffickers’ evil services would build.

And for what? In order to get people and their families from one wealthy, western democracy – France – to another wealthy, western democracy – Britain. “I’d rather die at sea than go back to Iran,” one aspiring British resident told a reporter during an interview that took place on the French coast. Fair enough, but there’s a Third Way: don’t risk your life by trying to row a dinghy across 20-odd miles of choppy sea and claim asylum in France instead.

David Wood, a former Home Office senior civil servant who was previously in charge of immigration policy, has warned ministers that migrants picked up in the Channel must be immediately returned to France. Only by clearly demonstrating that paying three thousand pounds to the traffickers will get you nowhere – literally – will their appalling business be shut down. By delivering migrants safe and sound to the UK, and allowing them to make a fresh asylum application, we are doing the exact bidding of evil men and keeping them in business.

Which is why the controversy over the number of “cutters” being deployed in the Channel by Britain is not as simple as it might seem. More patrols may well mean more rescues and fewer deaths, but it would also lead to more people taking bigger risks if they believe there’s a greater chance of rescue/arrest. And that would also lead to more deaths and more risks and the creation of a hellish vicious circle.

We should be clear, and the Church of England should be just as clear: people who have spent any time in France, or any other democratic and civilised country between here and the migrants’ home countries, have had ample time and opportunity to claim asylum there. Britain takes seriously its responsibilities to offer refuge to those genuinely at risk of persecution in their home countries; our reputation and record in this respect is one of which none of us has any reason to feel ashamed.

But while we may agree with their preference, we are under no obligation, legal or moral, to offer asylum to those who have chosen the UK over France as their future home.