EU Referendum


EU Referendum: what to do about Ukip?


04/08/2015



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Anyone following social media (and especially Twitter) and watching the comments on newspaper articles relating to the Calais migrant "crisis" will be only too aware of the presence of Ukip supporters and, at times, the almost rabid antipathy towards immigrants.

This has been reinforced by Nigel Farage's comments about the conduct of the referendum campaign, making it very clear that he intends to put immigration at the top of the list, giving the green light to the zealots in his own party, who like nothing better than railing about the subject.

Then there is that frankly asinine comment by Farage in the Mail, where he writes:
It is time to get tough and defend our borders properly. We must put in place a checking system at Dover for every car and lorry coming into the UK. The utopian dream of free movement has hit the buffers.
When one assesses everything that Farage has said, this is amongst the most disturbing, at several levels. Firstly, he appears not to know that the movement of asylum seekers across borders owes nothing to EU "free movement" rules, stemming as it does from the 1951 UN Convention and the 1967 Protocol.

Secondly, he very clearly does not understand the dynamics of the system. Seeking "a checking system at Dover for every car and lorry coming into the UK", he would allow asylum seekers onto UK territory so that, when they are discovered, all they have to do is demand asylum and we have to admit them.

Thus is why, of course, that the UK Government concluded the 2003 Le Touquet Agreement with the French, so that immigration checks are carried out on French soil, where the UK bears no responsibility for asylum seekers.

And it is because these checks are so effective that migrants have resorted to hiding in lorries and cars – not to evade controls in Dover but to by-pass the checks in France. Once they get to England, there is no longer any need to conceal themselves, and most migrants surrender to the authorities once they know they have arrived in this country.

Of course, there is some provision in the immigration rules under the EU's Dublin regulations to return migrants to the EU Member State where they first arrived (see para 345). However, the rules are so hedged with caveats that, from over 30,000 asylum seekers in the UK, only just over a thousand Dublin requests are made in a typical year, while incoming requests in 2012 actually exceeded outgoing. In all cases, though the number of actual transfers is considerably less.

As it stands, therefore, the French authorities provide the main defence against asylum seekers and, if the hostility shown by the likes of Farage towards France continues, we could find ourselves in the devastating position where the French pull out of the Le Touquet Agreement, as they are threatening to do.

But with or without French assistance, the core problem remains – the fact that the signatories (or "contracting states") to the Refugee Convention are effectively giving would-be asylum seekers a gold plated invitation to come to their territories.

On the other hand, as we saw yesterday, there is no shortage of reputable authorities who are or have been calling for the abolition or amendment of the 1951 Convention, and its replacement with something more suited to the conditions of the 21st Century.

And it is here that the "no" campaign in general and Ukip in particular are missing a trick. Within the target group of "undecideds" and soft "yes" voters, who we must get on-side if we are to get our 51 percent in the referendum, there will undoubtedly be many who see these migrants for what they are - refugees and, far from rejecting them, actually welcome them.

These are votes we can't afford to lose, with hard-line rhetoric about migrants and immigration. More to the point, we don't need to lose them, as there are ways we could achieve the effect Farage and his supporters desire, without resorting to the extremes that they do.

What the "no" campaign (including Ukip) could and should be doing is campaigning either for the repeal or the removal of the 1951 Convention (and Protocol) and its replacement with something better.

This is a line the EU can't follow, as the provisions of the 1951 Convention are embedded in the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights, which would need major treaty change to happen – which never will. Therefore, the need to address the 1951 Convention is in itself good grounds for leaving the EU, as the only way the UK could broker a new agreement.

Crucially, any new agreement should seek to integrate foreign policy and foreign aid, industrial policy, trade deals and things like third country fishing deals – as well as defence policy – so that we have joined up policy when it comes all to removing or reducing "push" factors.

With its effect on migration generally, we could then afford to be fairly generous with the relatively small number of people who demand asylum (less than ten percent of our net annual immigration), taking them directly from camps bordering the trouble spots, cutting out the smugglers and the predators.

Taking such a line would position the "no" campaign (and Ukip) as forward-looking, with a global vision, offering a positive outcome without having to verge on racism, as Ukip is doing. In other words, the wrong-headed focus on the EU is both unnecessary and counter-productive.

For the "no" campaign to adopt this view is a possibility, but that still leaves open the question of what to do about Ukip. In an ideal world, it would be possible to discuss things with the party, but time and again we see their obsessive behaviour as being beyond reason.

We can't stop Ukip though, so if it doesn't change, we have to disown it. Silence is not an option because, if we say nothing, the opposition will charge that their messages have the support of the "no" campaign in general. We disown it publicly, or it gets attributed to us. 

Eventually, as the campaign runs into its second year, we can see Ukip running out of steam, its members disillusioned and deserting in their droves as the polls refuse to move. At that point, I think we launch our "reserves" with a fresh campaign, leaving the taint behind us. And unless Ukip changes its ways, that is going to have to be the way we handle it.

The campaign is bigger than Ukip (and more important than Nigel Farage's ambitions). We cannot afford to give them the game, any more than we can allow the real "yes" campaign to have its own way when it finally reveals its hand.