They said it couldn’t’ be done, but Tánaiste Micheál Martin managed to do something not even the ever-loyal Daily Mail and Tory-graph (the Telegraph to British readers) have been able to do in the last few months – get some good press for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Tánaiste Micheál Martin blamed the British Rwanda Act for an increase in asylum seekers entering the Republic from Northern Ireland. ‘I believe the Rwanda effect is impacting on Ireland’, he said last Wednesday night. ‘It is having a real impact on Ireland now in terms of people being fearful in the UK.’ Helen McEntee, the justice minister, estimates that more than 80 per cent of asylum seekers in Ireland have crossed the open border.
What a win for the British government! After a relentless few months for Sunak and everyone saying that the Rwanda scheme either would not work or was too expensive here we have an immediate benefit.
The press team at Downing Street must have been cock-a-hoop with the Tánaiste’s comments although reports of actual dancing in the narrow corridors remain unconfirmed.
Prime Minister Sunak proudly told Trevor Phillips on Sunday that Martin’s comments showed that the ‘deterrent is already having an impact because people are worried about coming here’. He said that the flow of migrants to Ireland ‘demonstrates exactly what I’m saying: if people come to our country illegally, but know that they won’t be able to stay, they’re much less likely to come.’ As I said the Brits were cock-a-hoop!
Straight out of the blocks, James Heale at the Conservative Bible, the Spectator asks, Is the Rwanda plan already working?
“Within Whitehall, there is some wry amusement at the Irish briefing over the weekend. One Dublin insider attacked Sunak’s comments as ‘party political bullshit’ – a charge that equally could be levelled at the actions of the Irish government. Historically, it has been Britain wrestling with both migration crises and entry from the Common Travel Area. Now, it is Ireland which is considering emergency laws and expressing concerns about border crossings.”
The ever-critical Telegraph, were smug to say the least. Ross Clark crowing, “Hypocritical Ireland is now facing the consequences of its woke virtue signalling. Isn’t this what welcoming Ireland is supposed to be doing: offering sanctuary to anyone who fears for their safety in brutal Britain?”
Clark laid it on thick, “Ireland was supposed to be the shining human rights citadel on the hill, rising above nasty, racist and xenophobic Brexit Britain – or so the country’s liberal elite loved telling the world.
And yet. The Irish public is suddenly marching the streets waving banners with slogans such as “Ireland is Full”, “Ireland for the Irish” and “Irish Lives Matter” – the latter of which could well earn you a trip to court if transposed to “English Lives Matter” in an English street.’
If you need any proof that the Brits are not in the mood to compromise, this is the kind of thing the average Tory voter is reading over his toast and marmalade. Clark again ‘It also suggests that the Rwanda scheme is beginning to work. It might be expensive, and few migrants may ever be deported there, but that misses the point: the scheme is a powerful deterrent which tells economic migrants that if they are thinking of posing as refugees to come to Britain, don’t bother. We will protect you if you are in danger – but your safe berth will be in Rwanda, not here.
Perhaps goody-goody Ireland will soon start threatening to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda, too.’ Have mercy!
Soon the Irish government started suggesting that the Brits could take their asylum seekers back, thanks very much. This suggests asylum seekers are some kind of Amazon package that you have taken in for a neighbour, just for a couple of hours. It doesn’t work like.
The Times of London editorial on Monday pointed out: “The UK is likely to turn a deaf ear to Ireland’s demand that it take back those who crossed into the Republic. After all, the government will argue, Britain has tried in vain to get France to take back asylum seekers who are being packed by people- traffickers into flimsy boats on the French coast.” Exactly.
Never to be outdone in the true-blue Daily Mali, Dominic Lawson (son of the former Chancellor Nigel Lawson), had this to say, after quoting Micheál Martin blaming the Rwanda plan for immigrants coming over the border. “Oh, the irony. You see, there is no border invigilating the passage of people between the North and the Republic because the European Union — urged on by the Irish government — had insisted on this during the fraught Brexit negotiations.
The reason was that they regarded the imposition of any such border checks, even a single fixed camera, as a risk to peace, in the context of the Good Friday Agreement.
As PM, Theresa May agreed to this, despite the concern among Brexiteers that this would amount to an open back door for immigration from within the EU into the UK. Yet now it is Dublin which is ruing the consequence.”
Summing up the Irish predicament Lawson states, “As that great Irishman Oscar Wilde wickedly said of Dickens’ account of the death of Little Nell, you would need a heart of stone not to laugh.” They are enjoying it while they can.
Be in no doubt; the Brits are in absolutely no mood to compromise on this. The Irish government can bang on about sending immigrants back to the UK all they want but it’s a thanks but no thanks from the neighbours. And where exactly are the Irish government going to put these unfortunate people, Belfast, Liverpool, London? How are they going to do this, and what stops said immigrants from walking back across the borderless border again? Answers on a postcard please!
Politicians like Prime Minister Rishi Sunak don’t tend to pass up on obvious political wins, and the British press are not known for their pro-immigration, pro-Irish stance.
But more than that the British public have endured years of huge immigration. They will have no sympathy for the Irish no matter how much they like the beer and the accent (and they like both, I can assure you.)
I lived there for 20 years and they have taken their fair share. Every week the news is dominated by the NHS collapsing and dire housing conditions, so how anyone can justify ever larger numbers of immigrants I don’t know.
That’s when you are not dealing with outright criminality such as acid attacks by failed asylum seekers who amazingly are then given leave to remain. Of course this must all be balanced by the fact that the British Government hands out student visas like confetti (to keep the bankrupt universities going), the NHS must employ thousands of immigrants as it is effectively bankrupt, and a lot of the natives don’t fancy working. ‘The overall welfare bill for the British taxpayer currently stands at £297 billion and it is projected to climb to £360 billion over the next five years — the equivalent of 11 per cent of Britain’s entire economic output.’
There has been a huge increase in immigration in Britain after Brexit, even though many voted for Brexit to lower immigration. Another betrayal you might say. In Year end December 2022 immigration was estimated at 1.23 million.’
The Rwanda plan was first announced in April 2022 and took up much of Sunak’s time and political capital. This included weeks of parliamentary back-and-forth as peers in the House of Lords repeatedly blocked the legislation with a series of amendments. They eventually backed down, the bill becoming law on the 22nd of April 2024. Two years it took, two long years.
So congratulations to Tánaiste Micheál Martin for handing Sunak a much needed win. Irish voters should not be fooled into blaming the British for this one. Perhaps the Irish government should spend less time calling their own voters fascists and more time sorting out their own immigration plan that aligns with the aims of Irish voters, than slagging off the neighbours for theirs.