00:00indicated the scheme is a work in progress with hope that an announcement could be agreed in
00:05principle and can happen soon. Well, we're now joined by a director at the Centre for Migration
00:10and Prosperity, Stephen Wolfe. Good to see you this morning. Stephen, what do you make of this
00:14plan? This is a plan that has been thought about by non-governmental organisations and American
00:21think tanks like the Migration Policy Institute, which has established the idea that the UK and
00:29France should copy the Safe Mobility Initiative that was established by Joe Biden, one that Donald
00:36Trump cancelled immediately. And why I believe it will be an absolute failure is that it also
00:42recognises that the numbers of people coming into the United Kingdom of France won't change.
00:47It's just that the way that they will come into will change. They talk about, for example,
00:53an office being established across France, maybe in Paris, maybe in Lille. And then once Channel
00:59once migrants are given the right to come to the United Kingdom, they'll get on a charter plane
01:04instead of getting onto a boat. And so that's the idea. We'll now be watching them coming into the
01:10boats, onto planes and boats. So this idea is not about reducing the numbers. It's about just reducing
01:16the images of seeing people coming in across boats. There will still be the need for hotels. There will
01:22still be the need for assessing what parts of the country these people go to.
01:27I mean, this doesn't stop the boats, does it? It doesn't smash the gangs. But do you think if
01:32this is just one of the many different things that the government is working on, it could work in
01:37theory? Well, what are you trying to reduce? Just stopping the images of the people coming across the
01:43boats on the Channel migrants? It certainly will reduce them because those people will say,
01:48I'll go to Paris, I'll go to Lille. It won't certainly, I wouldn't imagine it would be in
01:52Cali because Cali is an issue point for the French and they would like to see the camps reduced. But it
01:58won't reduce the numbers and it won't stop the gangs either because the gangs will still be picking
02:02them up in Afghanistan, Somalia, India, sorry, Iran and Iraq. And they'll still be paying for those
02:10journeys to get to France. It's just how they will arrive here. And the idea that you'll get in one in,
02:16one out is also nonsensical because the concept is if you arrive on the boat having failed your
02:21asylum process in, say, Lille or Paris, you'll still get onto the boat and we'll then send you back.
02:28All they'll do is keep doing it until they get in because now they're coming on the backs of lorries.
02:32We know that that continues another 5,000 a year. So the routes that we had before Brexit under the old
02:40Dublin 2 system will continue. And you've got to remember what happened then. Under Dublin 2, we had a
02:46similar system. We could return to France, all those that arrived here that we felt weren't deemed
02:50to be passing the asylum test. But we received four times as many from France as we sent back.
02:58This is just basically a charter to continue the people gangs, allowing them just to go to official
03:03hubs so it doesn't look bad in the newspapers because we can see them coming across on the boats.
03:09And we're seeing them coming across in record numbers, 18,000 so far this year, up 43% on the
03:18same point last year. What needs to be done, Stephen?
03:23The first and only way that you stop the boats is by ensuring that you have a deterrent system
03:28in place in a country that prevents people from wanting to come here. And then you have a legal system
03:36that restricts individuals being able to appeal all the time. So whatever deal we do with the French,
03:42it should have been one that said we won't accept anyone coming across on the channel. Secondly,
03:47remove ourselves from the European Courts of Human Rights, abolish the Human Rights Act,
03:53and start to enact legislation that rolls back in common law all the established legal principles
03:59that we have in place that allows people like having a beard to be able to stay here because
04:04he will have it cut off in his country. Or my child doesn't like chicken McNuggets in Albania.
04:11Those sort of rules are breaches of the European Courts of Human Rights.
04:14Thirdly, we then internationally start working with countries like the United States,
04:19who want to amend the UN Refugee Convention to ensure that we know exactly what it means.
04:25It's for those genuinely fleeing torture, not those seeking economic benefits of another country.
04:30There are a system in places nationally, internationally that we can do.
04:35It just requires a government with real steel behind them to be able to do this,
04:41not the ones that we've had like weak feathers blowing in the wind.
04:45Okay. Stephen.
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