We are heading towards total chaos - Matt Goodwin
Thursday, October 23, 2025
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
Monday, October 20, 2025
Sunday, October 19, 2025
Thursday, October 16, 2025
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Monday, October 13, 2025
Sunday, October 12, 2025
Saturday, October 11, 2025
Friday, October 10, 2025
Thursday, October 9, 2025
Wednesday, October 8, 2025
Tuesday, October 7, 2025
Monday, October 6, 2025
Sunday, October 5, 2025
Saturday, October 4, 2025
Friday, October 3, 2025
Thursday, October 2, 2025
The Chinese ‘super
dinghies’ smuggling more migrants into Britain than ever before
Larger, overcrowded vessels are pushing the Channel crisis into dangerous new territory, with record numbers attempting the perilous journey
At 40 feet long and
10 feet wide, they are the people smugglers’ equivalent of an ocean liner –
especially when heavily overloaded. Pictured in the Channel for the first time
yesterday was a new Chinese-made “super dinghy”, capable of ferrying scores of
migrants into Britain in a single crossing.
Loaded with around
100 people, the vessel left the French coast on Tuesday – just hours
before Sir Keir Starmer’s speech to the Labour Party conference, where he pledged to
end the “vile trade” of people trafficking for good. Just three days before,
another Chinese-produced super-dinghy had crossed with 125 people – the
largest-ever number to make the journey in a single vessel. The arrivals lay
bare Labour’s failure to stem the migrant crisis,
and make it clear that is no longer strictly a “small boats” problem.
“As long as the smugglers know that when people arrive here they can stay for good, they will add to the size of their boats,” says Alp Mehmet, chair of Migration Watch UK. “They know there’s lots of money in it and bigger boats means more money.”
The two super
dinghies were part of what officials fear may be a new armada of large-scale
people-smuggling vessels, defying government efforts to crack down on the sale
of boats to trafficking gangs. As part of Sir Keir’s pledge to “smash the
gangs”, the Government has worked with EU law enforcement to stop the import of
cheap inflatables – which fall short of seaworthiness tests – and asked China
to stop exporting outboard engines used by people smugglers. Amid great fanfare
in July, the Government also slapped sanctions on a Chinese firm, Weihai Yamar Outdoors Product Co, which was
advertising “refugee boats” for sale on its website.
However, dinghies of the kind used by traffickers
are still available for sale for as little as £1,000 on Alibaba, the Chinese
equivalent of Amazon, according to reports this week. And while most no longer
advertise themselves as being “migrant” boats, the vendors seem well aware who
their market is, with one advert showing a dinghy pulled up on a beach. Critics
argue that there is little to stop Chinese vendors simply re-advertising under
different names to avoid scrutiny from UK officials.
Most of the Chinese boat makers are in eastern port
cities like Qingdao, from where their products are typically shipped to Turkey
– itself a hub for people smuggling. They are then taken into the EU via
Bulgaria and often warehoused in Germany, where the large influx of Syrian and
Afghan migrants from 2015 has bequeathed a vestige of people-smuggling
infrastructure, before eventually being moved to northern France. 28 sec
Cracking down on
the industry has proved stubbornly difficult. At a global immigration summit in
London at Easter, big tech social media firms pledged to stop people smugglers
advertising services and wares on their platforms, but in practice enforcement
is hard. In December, the National Crime Agency also said it was in
“conversations” with Chinese counterparts to restrict the supply of outboard
engines. The agency has tried to make its case by pointing out to Beijing that
most of the hundreds of people trafficking boats and engines it has seized in
operations are Chinese-made. However, with relations between Britain and China somewhat
chilly, expectations of co-operation are limited.
The passengers on the two super-dinghies – who were picked up by Border Force vessels that intercepted them mid-Channel – bring the total number of small boat migrants to have made it to Britain’s shores this year to nearly 33,500. That equates with figures at the same point in 2022, a year which holds the grim record for the highest number of arrivals.
Since the start of the small boat crisis seven
years ago, the number of migrants per vessel has also skyrocketed. In 2018,
each boat carried an average of seven passengers; this year, the average is 61.
With the additional
numbers also comes additional danger. While most of the passengers are adult
males, the gangs will often cram a few women and children on as well, aware of
the tactical value of having “vulnerable” people perched on board. This can be
used to either deter French police vessels from
intercepting them and turning them back, or to prompt British vessels to pick
them up. But on the larger boats, the sheer number of people on board means
there is often a huge crush – at which point the “women and children first”
chivalry is forgotten.
On one vessel that
tried to bring 70 migrants across in September, French officials reported that
three people – including two children – had been found crushed to death at the
bottom of the boat. Two Somali women were found dead in
similar circumstances on another boat last weekend. The use of much larger
craft also deters passing commercial vessels from rescue attempts in genuine
emergencies, because of the risks involved in dealing at sea with a large,
panicking crowd.
As Migration Watch
UK pointed out last month, the 182,000 small boat migrants that have crossed
the Channel since 2018 now outnumbers the entire active and reserve strength of
the 180,000-strong British armed forces. Curbing the flow is central to Sir Keir’s
credibility, given that one of his first acts in office was to scrap the Tory government’s Rwanda asylum deal,
which was designed to deter crossings in the first place.
Asked about the “super dinghies” this week, Home Office minister Mike Tapp insisted that it showed the Government’s strategy to disrupt supply chains was working.
“We’re having success upstream in intercepting the
actual procurement of boat parts, which is why they’re using bigger ones,” he
told the BBC.
Critics, however,
are yet to be convinced. Tony Smith, a former Border Force head who favours a
return to the Rwanda strategy, argues that trying to “smash” people smuggling gangs
will be no easier than trying to destroy drug-trafficking
networks. As long as there is a demand for their services, he says,
there will be those willing to supply boats, no matter how much law enforcement
tries to stop them. After all, even the “super dinghies” are small enough to
fit into the back of a van or lorry when deflated, so smuggling them is not
hard.
“There are efforts underway to stop them being brought into the European Union via Bulgaria [from Turkey], but it’s like putting your finger in a dyke – if you block off one route, another will appear,” he says. “When Border Force seize boats, they do examine them forensically, analysing where the rubber and component parts are from, but it’s pretty clear that there’s still an unending supply, and if the gangs can’t import them from outside the EU, they can try making their own.”
He is also sceptical about the level of co-operation from the French, pointing out that the modern drone-spy technology deployed on the coast around Calais should allow any large dinghies to be stopped well before they put to sea. “These drones can practically tell what kind of sandwich someone is eating,” he says. “Why the French aren’t stopping them I don’t know – it seems they’re just giving it a Gallic shrug.”
Other observers, though, say the Government’s
efforts are making some difference. Tuesday Reitano is an expert on
human-smuggling at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime,
a respected research body that deploys investigators around the French coast
and in Germany (another transportation hub for Chinese boats).
“One of our researchers started seeing these bigger
boats a couple of months ago, but they’re not widespread and it’s hard to say
yet if it’s becoming a trend,” she says.
“The people smuggling used to be dominated by five
big organised groups, but there’s now rather more fragmentation due to law
enforcement from both the UK and France, leading to smaller actors stepping in.
It may be that some of them are trying to cheat the system and shove extra
people onto their boats, and it may be something of a ‘last push’ before the
winter weather makes crossings more difficult.”
She adds, however, that with the fragmentation has
come more violence, with gangs increasingly using weapons and even engaged in
firefights. That could reflect increasing desperation. Equally, it might simply
underline the commonality between the people-smugglers and the drug gangs.
“The analogy with drug trafficking is a good one,”
says Smith, who insists the Rwanda strategy, however contentious, would reduce
demand long-term. “As long as there are large numbers of people willing to pay
to come here, the smuggling will carry on, no matter how much law enforcement
you have. The only real way to stop it is to break the business model.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/d7411dddd11ccaf
Wednesday, October 1, 2025
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)