It’s not every day that an anointed emissary of God wades into the immigration debate. But that’s precisely what Pope Francis has done in an excoriating statement taking aim at the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations.
“What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly,” he wrote in a letter to American bishops this week, adding that “the act of deporting people… damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families”.
I wonder what the Pope would make of the British government’s recent publicity blitz heralding their new deportation numbers. According to the Home Office, close to 19,000 refused asylum seekers, foreign criminals and other immigration offenders have been removed from the UK since Labour took office. They’ve also organised four of the biggest return flights in UK history (quick – someone tell the Guinness World Book of Records).
But, just as a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, there’s no point in deporting an immigrant if a political party can’t shout about it. Hence Labour blanketing Facebook with Reform-coded ads trumpeting its “five year high in migrant removals”, and its pièce de résistance: a heavily blurred video showing Border Force officials escorting a group of unidentified men onto a deportation flight. Who are these people? What airport is this? Where are they going? What have they done? Clearly, it doesn’t matter – all that matters is that they’re leaving the country.
All this, of course, is meant to outfox Reform on Reform territory. Labour is spooked by the right-wing populist party’s surging popularity, with multiple polls showing it either neck and neck with the incumbent government or, even more worryingly for Keir Starmer, in the top spot. And this is no flash in the pan, either – according to polling guru Sir John Curtice, “there is no reason to believe Reform’s vote is being significantly overstated”.
The problem is that Reform’s pitch to voters is a political dead end – and that goes for Reform, too. The issues that it has identified – an increasing dissatisfaction with living standards, a pervasive sense of a country slowly circling the drain – are not ones that can be fixed by tackling illegal migration.
That’s because illegal immigrants, as various experts have been patiently explaining for years, are not actually doing any of the things that they have long been accused of doing in the press.
They are not living the high life on taxpayers’ dime – the level of financial support available to asylum seekers is actually 29 per cent less in real terms than it was in 2000, a quarter of a century ago. They are not taking jobs either – in fact, they are almost always barred from working, even though campaign groups like Refugee Action have argued that giving them a right to work would help them contribute to society and actually boost the UK economy by £333m.
Does it sound shocking that 37,000 people crossed over on small boats in 2024? Of course it does. But let’s put it into context: that number would barely fill up the 120,000-capacity Pyramid Stage field at Glastonbury. If such a relatively small group had the power to single-handedly cause such chaos in the British economy, would they even bother coming to the UK in the first place?
A stranger invited me for lunch. I'm so glad I went
Read MoreMigrants are not the reason why rent is going up. They are not the reason why over a million people in the UK are out of work. They are not the reason why you can’t get a GP appointment. They are not even the reason why your supermarket shop costs more – although a migrant almost certainly picked most of the fruit and veg in your basket.
That is all down to inflation, years of austerity and decisions made by our politicians. British consumers were some of those hardest hit by the global inflation crisis and rising costs, with economists warning that the poorest households will take up to 2027 to recover. A decade-long campaign of austerity slashed public services to the bone, including social care and the NHS. Wages and productivity have flatlined since the 2008 financial crisis – a decade before the first small boats were recorded to have crossed the Channel – thanks to chronic underinvestment by government and business in skills and infrastructure.
Even if Labour managed to singlehandedly frogmarch every single undocumented person in the country onto a Boeing 737 to nowhere, it wouldn’t do a thing to assuage the economic stagnation and lack of growth that is causing such unhappiness or hardship among voters.
But the widespread assumption that you can casually flip the big “tough on immigration” switch and immediately regain votes is everywhere. It’s the animating impulse behind Kemi Badenoch’s recent proposal that migrants must wait for 15 years before they can become a citizen.
That’s why Labour’s big push on immigration is doomed. If Reform ever get into power – and I’m sure Nigel Farage is currently going to bed with dreams of No10 dancing before his eyes – they will be destined to fail, too.
These political parties have correctly diagnosed voters’ unhappiness but misidentified the cause. Now they’re forcing the wrong medicine down our throats – and all it’ll do is hurt their prospects when people still feel worse off and turn on them.
There aren’t enough deportation flights in the world to make a difference – on this, Pope Francis and I agree.
Zing Tsjeng is a journalist, non-fiction author, and podcaster
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