Can new asylum plans boost Sunak’s standing?

At least three people are feared dead after a small boat capsized and sank in the middle of the English Channel, prompting a major search-and-rescue operation.

The government confirmed that 43 people had been rescued after Royal Navy and Coastguard rescue teams, including a helicopter, “faced a race against time, as temperatures plunged to -3°C last night”, reported The Sun.

The tragic case comes just a day after Rishi Sunak unveiled a new five-point plan to limit migration to the UK, including a new deal with Albania that will dramatically speed up deportations to the Balkan state.

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The prime minister told the Commons yesterday that “enough is enough” and that the asylum system is currently “not fair”.

What’s in the five-point plan?

More than 44,700 people have arrived in Britain this year by crossing the Channel in small boats, Sky News analysis shows. According to Sunak, Albanians accounted for more than a third of arrivals in the first nine months of the year – or 33,000 – compared to just 3% in 2021.

The PM’s five-point plan promises to:

• Establish a new permanent unified small boats operational command, which brings together military personnel, civilian capability and the National Crime Agency.
• Allow immigration officers to spend more of their time working exclusively on enforcement, which would increase raids on illegal business premises by more than 50%.
• Stop using hotels to house asylum seekers wherever possible.
• Double the number of asylum caseworkers to triple productivity.
• Deem Albania a “safe country”, which will mean the “majority of claims” will be rejected and thousands of people returned on “weekly flights”.

What did the papers say?

Sunak is “bigging up his new plan” to tackle immigration across most of the right-leaning papers today, said Esther Webber in Politico’s London Playbook. In an opinion article in the Telegraph, Sunak said he would exclude immigrants who are “cheating” the system in order to reach this country, while in The Sun he said he shares “people’s frustration” over the issue.

And yet his migration plan “raises big questions”, said the BBC’s home and legal correspondent Dominic Casciani. Much of what he is proposing with his small boats operational command is “already being done in some shape or form… so it’s not clear yet what is changing”.

His proposals for dealing with Albanians rest on “disputed” claims, Casciani added, and fast-tracking the cases would require serious resources “and it’s not remotely clear the Home Office has them”.

Sunak’s new asylum plans have been condemned by organisations that campaign on behalf of refugees as “deeply disturbing” and against international law.

Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “Without safe routes [asylum seekers] have no choice but to take dangerous journeys. The prime minister failed to set out any concrete plans to expand these routes through a resettlement programme or an expansion in family reunion visas. Instead this government wants to treat people who come to the UK in search of safety as illegal criminals.”

What next?

Eye-catching as it is, Sunak’s entire list of measures is “small beer” compared to his most significant announcement, said Patrick O’Flynn in The Spectator.

His five-point plan will neither save the Tories electorally nor make any material change to the number of migrants reaching the UK. However, the “big bang” element of the prime minister’s statement was in fact in its second half, O’Flynn said: “the promise of new legislation early next year that will, in effect, bring about the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from a global asylum system that he explicitly – and correctly – branded ‘obsolete’”.

While the details are not yet clear, the crux of this new law appears to be that if you arrive in the UK illegally, you will not be allowed to remain. Instead, according to Sunak, you will be shipped off to another country “where your claim can be considered”.

And even if you are found to be fleeing persecution you still won’t be allowed to live in the UK because once removed you will have “no right to re-entry, settlement or citizenship”.

Rishi Sunak is “clearly hoping that Labour will vote against his proposed new asylum law next year, and that it will function as a wedge issue, with Keir Starmer on one side and a majority of voters on the other,” said Andrew Sparrow in The Guardian.

And according to O’Flynn, that is a fight that Labour cannot easily win. Consequently, Starmer “may try not to take the bait, and instead focus debate on the economy [and] the NHS... but most polling indicates that a large majority of voters are likely to be on Sunak’s side”, O’Flynn said. And “if he sticks to this mission the Conservatives can win again.”