When I was on holiday in Dorset last week I didn’t notice the absences of border patrols. When I saw a small boat chugging into West Bay’s pretty little harbour, I was not thinking to myself, “Blimey, I’ll bet that one’s full of refugees just waiting to tap in to our highly generous benefits system”, but then again it wasn’t. But Lord West, the former supremo of the navy, believes security at our ports is a “complete mess.”
If I was a migrant of some sort, the first thing I’d decide to do is where to land. It is not a difficult call. Would I head for somewhere like Dover or one of the smaller ports? Let’s hear from Lord West again: “I don’t believe there aren’t clever traffickers using the smaller ports to send them and I’m sure terrorists are aware of the route too.” I do not possess Lord West’s extensive knowledge of security matters, but if I was a trafficker, clever or not, I wouldn’t smuggle people into any kind of port at all. I’d take them into the waters between West Bay and Burton Bradstock. Granted, the shingle does get between your toes, but so far as I could tell there was no kind of border force in operation at all. There never has been in that area.
Actually, I have noticed the absence of border forces wherever I have been on holiday for many years. Even I was to bring my refugees to Weymouth, I would probably avoid the port itself and drop my cargo at, say, Osmington Mills where they and I could stop by the Smugglers Inn for a refreshing pint before heading off to the local Jobcentre. Thinking about it, there are thousands of miles of our coastline which are not policed at all. I would imagine it would cost a pretty penny to employ additional border staff – say a couple of hundred thousand might do it, at least for the south of England. We could have huts on every cliff, border posts every 100 yards or so and maybe if our Trident submarines weren’t busy, we could send them up and down the land, or rather the sea.
These are, I know, serious issues. It is worrying that a boatload of Albanians, along with a British man who was wanted for murder, were floating aimlessly in the English Channel before their boat sank and just last month a couple of Iranian men were discovered in the middle of the shipping lanes in a small dinghy. But what do you do about it?
I happen to think our borders are insufficiently staffed, in the same way that we do not have enough police officers or revenue or customs staff. But before you complain about that, ask yourself how you voted at the last general election? If you voted Conservative, you must surely know that you voted for cuts to vital frontline services, or to cut waste and improve efficiency as David Cameron put it. If you voted Conservative and you are angry, then take a look in the mirror. This is the austerity you gladly voted for and must have embraced because austerity through public spending cuts has consequences. If you think I am making a political point, you are correct. If you want a low tax, low spending economy, this is an example of how it will look. It really is this simple. This is the politics and economics of the madhouse, or Conservative Party as it’s better known, the party that takes the axe to the armed forces but beefs up the bureaucracy which also earns vastly more than those on the frontline.
We want our cake and we want to eat it, don’t we? (Well, not ‘we’. I accept and support the need for adequate staffing levels in frontline public service, armed forces and police so don’t count me in on this one.)
If people really want to come to this country, then they will get here, one way or another. It is not the land of milk and honey, or indeed free housing and generous benefits, that some have been told it will be, especially if they are here illegally because as soon as they turn up anywhere they will be nicked, always assuming we have any border or police officers left.
Hopefully, once this final series of Broadchurch has been completed, David Tennant’s character Inspector Hardy can be redeployed at West Bay to intercept all these dodgy foreign types. He would certainly been no less effective than the real thing which in most places is nothing at all.
