Farage: Boris Set to Sell the UK ‘Down the River’ on Immigration

Brexit leader Nigel Farage warned that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government is likely to sell the UK “down the river on immigration”, predicting that even with the country’s departure from the European Union, illegal immigration will continue at pace.

Mr Farage said that anyone who thought that illegal boat migration would cease following Brexit was “mistaken”, pointing to the boatload of migrants who were brought ashore by UK Border Force late last week.

The arch-Brexiteer said that despite repeated promises from Home Secretary Priti Patel to end the waves of illegal migrants coming from across the English Channel and the “seemingly endless series of meetings” between Immigration Minister Chris Philp and his French counterparts, “nothing changes”.

“There comes a point at which a government which continually breaks a big promise loses the trust of its supporters,” Mr Farage wrote in The Telegraph.

Following Britain’s official departure from the European Union at the beginning of the year, the UK is no longer bound by the bloc’s asylum arrangement, the Dublin III Regulation, which states that migrants should claim asylum in the first safe country they step foot in.

Theoretically, the British government will be able to reject asylum claims of migrants intercepted at sea. However, as Mr Farage noted: “The problem for Patel is that, Britain leaving the EU, the Dublin regulations have expired and have not been replaced with anything else.”

So far, the UK has not come to any agreement with the EU or any member state on the issue of returning rejected asylum seekers.

The leader of the Brexit movement lamented that “the French have successfully stalled us” and that since the UK has agreed to remain within the European Convention of Human Rights regime (ECHR), it has committed to “give effect to the rights and freedoms in the ECHR”.

That being the case, Mr Farage predicted that if the UK were to attempt to send illegal migrants back to France, Britain would continue to face legal challenges against the deportations and as a result, the “cross-Channel migrant route will be as busy as it was last year”.

“The upshot of this is that if the UK is seen to have violated these terms, the whole of the trade agreement could be terminated by the EU,” he wrote, adding: “This is the mess in which Britain now finds itself.”

In November, Home Secretary Priti Patel agreed to send another £28 million in British taxpayer funds to France to step up patrols of the beaches along Calais’ coasts.

Since 2014, the British government has sent £192 million in payoffs to the French to stop the flow of illegal migrants, yet illegal immigration has only continued to grow.

Estimates have revealed that at least 8,417 illegal migrants were brought ashore in Britain during 2020, more than quadruple the number in 2019 when 1,890 were recorded reaching British shores.

“It is going to take extraordinary courage and political will to deal with these problems, about which so many voters and taxpayers care so passionately,” Farage said.

“I wonder if this government has the will necessary to tackle this situation head-on?” he questioned.

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