Oh no, the government has announced another “crackdown”, this time on businesses who employ illegal immigrants. They will be hit, announces immigration minister James Brokenshire (who he?), with “the full force of government machinery”. Wow! He really means business. The “government machinery” that has been cut to the bone by, er, the government, working with outdated technology, bogged down with endless bureaucratic procedures with a vastly reduced workforce. The gang masters must be quaking in their boots. Or, more likely, carrying on as usual.
As someone who once worked in the public sector, I have seen more crackdowns than I have had hot dinners. Governments always announce them when they sense the public is getting restless about something or other. When the coalition government was elected in 2010, David Cameron announced a “crackdown on benefit fraud”, setting up “crack teams” (they like crack, these politicians) to crack down on fraudsters. And what did this new crack team do? They sent out forms to people, some of whom were already being investigated by professional DWP fraud investigators. Cameron’s crackdown was really asking claimants whether they were committing benefit fraud. You can imagine legions of hard core fraudsters holding their hands up. “I give up, guv. This crackdown has pointed out to me the error of my ways. Fine me and send me to prison now!” I am not aware of any statistical evidence to suggest that this actually happened, but experience suggests it might not have been all that many.
With “government machinery” already at full stretch, you do wonder how the the Borders Agency staff will prosecute any of the 600,000 to 1,1 million illegals (depending on which numbers guess you believe) who are already here. They will not be that easy to find since the idea is no one knows they are here or where.
Brokenshire says that these wretched illegals are driving down wages and preventing the indigenous population getting jobs. And what exciting minimum wage opportunities they are for the unemployed: jobs with cleaning firms, building sites and care homes, often at all hours of the day and week. Those caring, sharing Tories, eh?
I do not disagree in principle with the idea of dealing with the issue of illegal immigration, but I do disagree in principle with the dog whistle politics of crackdowns. This is not some brand new initiative. A minister has met some senior civil servants, after word has come from the constituencies that voters are worried about the effects of immigrants. So the minister has come up with the age old solution of “let’s do something”, or rather “let’s make it look like we are doing something”. What it means, in reality, is there will be a short term campaign of multi-agency activity, there will be a few high profile “dawn raids” and then everything will revert to normal. Until the voters read the Daily Mail again and discover that “illegal immigrants threaten house prices” and the whole facade will begin again.
The term “crackdown” when applied to governments, of whatever colour, is merely a means of acknowledging a public concern, not having a clue what to do about it, but telling the public you are doing something about it, even though you’re not. Does that make sense? Good, because it’s not supposed to.
