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British historyeueueueueueuEUukeueuYour browser does not support the element. is filled with stories of miraculously helpful weather, from the “Protestant wind” that scattered the Spanish Armada in 1588 to the calm, cloudy conditions that enabled the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940. The weather has been less kind to Britain’s new government in one area where it is desperate to succeed.October was unusually calm on the southern coast—good weather for piloting a rickety inflatable craft filled with asylum-seekers across the English Channel from France or Belgium. Boats arrived on 16 days last month, up from nine the previous October. More than 5,400 migrants landed, setting a monthly record for this year and pushing the annual tally above last year’s total (see chart).For a government keen to show it can get a grip on the nation’s problems, this is unfortunate. Britons may sympathise with people fleeing oppression, but they dislike the evident lack of control over their borders. Labour is creating a new Border Security Command and it promises tougher measures against people who facilitate irregular border crossings. Earlier this month Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, told Interpol, an international police agency, that people-smuggling should be seen as a threat to global security, like terrorism.The number of people seeking asylum is strongly influenced by population growth elsewhere and the amount of chaos in the world—things over which Britain has scant influence. But the new government may soon be able to boast that the figure is coming down. One reason is that Europe’s borders are tightening. Another is that the new regime is taking a more pragmatic approach than its Conservative predecessor, which clung to the fantasy that it could make the problem disappear by .From January to the end of September, the number of irregular crossings into the was 42% lower than the previous year, according to Frontex, the agency that oversees the bloc’s borders. That snapped a three-year trend of increases. Agreements with transit countries like Tunisia and Egypt, which receive cash in exchange for tighter policing of migrants, have probably helped cut the numbers. More such deals are likely. Britain, which knows that most asylum-seekers reaching its shores have traipsed through the , seems keen to help, and could cut deals of its own.The new government also wants to maintain better relations with France, which (with the help of British cash) harries migrants on its coast and prevents many of them from leaving for Britain. An improvement should not be difficult, because the Tories were so inept. In 2021 the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, wrote to Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, breezily suggesting that his country take back every asylum-seeker who crossed into Britain. “My officials will share draft text with counterparts,” he added, helpfully. France reacted by disinviting the home secretary from a meeting about migration.The number of people seeking asylum in Britain tends to track the number applying in the , but not exactly. In the year to June 2016, when many Syrians fled to Europe, 32 times more first-time claims were made in the 27 countries that are now members than in Britain. Then the ratio began to fall. By the year to June 2019, claims in the were 14 times higher. In the year to June 2024 they were 11 times higher. Something seems to have made Britain more attractive.One likely suspect is Brexit. When Britain left the , it lost access to a fingerprint database known as Eurodac, which allows countries to see if a person has already claimed asylum somewhere else. It also ceased to be covered by the Dublin Regulation, which enables countries to return asylum-seekers to each other. That may have enticed migrants. “They know that once they reach the , the chance of being returned to the is small,” says Peter Walsh of the Migration Observatory, a think-tank at Oxford University.Rectifying this situation will not be easy. The is already struggling to hold member states to a migration pact that they agreed on last year, and may not have the time or the inclination to cut a separate deal with Britain. But at least the new Labour government is taking a more sensible tack than its predecessor. It cannot control what other countries will do, just as it cannot control the weather. It has some influence over the climate.
