Keir Starmer has fallen into a migration trap and it could backfire spectacularly

Sir Keir Starmer has fallen into a trap.

His rhetoric on immigration will alienate left-leaning Labour voters and those on the Right will demand action to end the Channel migrant crisis and reverse sky-high levels of net migration.

The result of this conumdrum, if the PM fails to get it right? Everyone loses trust in politics and society continues to suffer from the effects of mass migration, the small boats crisis and a failing asylum system.

The Prime Minister on Thursday, during a visit to Albania, confirmed he wants to deport failed asylum seekers to “return hubs”. The UK could open talks with as many as nine countries.

But Sir Keir’s Rwanda-lite plan was dealt a blow within minutes when Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said Tirana would only operate such a scheme with Italy.

That deal is predicated on a deep historical bond, something that the UK does not have. Indeed, the Prime Minister even faced awkward questions about previous comments, from former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, about Albanian criminals living in the UK.

Downing Street sources insisted a UK return hub in Albania was never on the cards for the Prime Minister’s bilateral meeting with Mr Rama.

But the optics of such a moment were embarrassing for a Prime Minister desperately trying to end the Channel migrant crisis and blunt Nigel Farage’s growing popularity in the polls.

Only failed asylum seekers who have exhausted all of their appeals will be sent to one of these proposed hubs. It could be a solution for removing foreign criminals and illegal migrants from countries such as Afghanistan, where no deportation deals are ever likely to be signed.

But that is where the problems start. Research by The Migration Observatory states the asylum backlog, as of December, stood at 91,000.

Of those waiting for an initial decision, 50,000 had been waiting for more than six months. And another crisis is brewing.

“The initial decision backlog is not the only backlog in the UK’s asylum system”, the Migration Observatory said. As a result, the number of pending appeals before the First-tier asylum tribunal has also risen six-fold in two years – to 42,000 at the end of 2024.

“Around 16,000 asylum appeals were decided in 2024. Although that was 76% more than the year before, it was significantly lower than the 37,000 new appeals lodged in 2024.

“The number of new appeals will remain high as more initial decisions are made and refusals appealed. This suggests the appeals backlog is likely to continue growing significantly in 2025.”

So, it’s going to take years to get through these backlogs. The Home Office is trying to get ahead of this by fast-tracking the appeals of asylum seekers living in taxpayer-funded hotels.

But, perhaps unsurprisingly, officials have admitted migrants could use the European Convention on Human Rights to challenge this.

Officials have claimed there is a risk that those in hotels will “not have sufficient time to prepare and present their case in a manner that is fair and in the interests of justice”.

And those who are not living in taxpayer-funded hotels appealing against asylum refusals could be able to claim they are being “unjustifiably delayed”.

A memorandum added that “in respect of both scenarios, there is a risk of article 14 discrimination”.

The central issue, therefore, remains. Migrants are still going to cross the Channel and chance their arm with a legal system that many believe defies “common sense” in many of its rulings.

That’s why a debate is raging on about whether the UK should quit the European Convention on Human Rights, or, at the very least, disapply human rights laws in immigration cases.

Illegal migrants primarily rely on Article 3 of the ECHR, freedom from torture and persecution, and Article 8, right to a family and private life, when they lodge appeals against asylum refusals.

Ministers will, later this year, bring forward new legislation to “clarify Article 8 rules and set out how they apply in different immigration routes so that fewer cases are treated as ‘exceptional’.

The “public interest test” will be strengthened to “make it clear that Parliament needs to be able to control our borders”.

And migrants trying to “get round the rules”, for example by using Article 8 to apply to stay after travelling to the UK on a short-term visa, will likely lose their cases, under the new rules.

The Home Office believes the legislation – which will introduce a framework – will “limit successful claims” from individuals who “frustrate and delay removal with spurious claims in an attempt to stretch out their stay in the UK, and thereby increase the eventual likelihood of having an Article 8 claim upheld”.

Home Office sources dismissed comparisons between the return hubs proposals and the Rwanda scheme. Migrants removed from the UK under Labour's scheme will have already exhausted all of their legal options.

This is a key difference with the Rwanda scheme, where migrants were filing legal challenges against Home Office deportation plans. It will target migrants living in the UK who have already exhausted all their legal options, but cannot be deported.

But Former Border Force chief Tony Smith said of the international conventions: “It was never intended that people could flee their own country, cross multiple borders and eventually settle in a country where they would quite like to stay, such as the UK.

“The fact is that a great many of the people who are coming here from France have been in Europe for a long time and out of their own country for a long time. They’ve probably even applied to stay in other countries that have refused them.”

The current situation in Calais would reinforce this.

A staggering TV report, by GB News, featured a migrant who said: “I think in England they can help me with anything. Maybe they can give me a house.”

Another, from Sudan, said: “I've spent two months here in France, and we crossed a lot of countries when we were coming from Africa. We crossed almost three countries. When we entered Europe, we entered Italy.

"If they tried to send me back to my country, there's no way. If they want to send me back, there's no way.

"We are talking to people who are still fighting and they are still dying."

Many are picking the UK. And they are happy to fight to stay, whilst living in taxpayer-funded hotels and receiving benefits.

Sir Keir and Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, want to “smash the gangs”. But Ms Cooper made a vital admission this week on what it will take.

She told LBC: “We need that French action in the waters, not just on the coast, and we also need the broader counter terrorism powers that we're bringing in."

The Home Secretary was referring to the French intercepting migrant dinghies in shallow waters. The Home Office had been hoping this would start in the coming weeks.

But it may not start for a “few months”, meaning the smugglers can exploit the Summer without the fear the boats will be intercepted.

And a senior border source admitted on Friday what many already feared. The surge in Channel crossings will continue this year and won’t begin to fall until next year.

By then, the Government will be hoping the counter-terrorism-style powers introduced by the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill will be helping the National Crime Agency in the fight against the people smugglers.

But as those migrants in Calais said, they will keep trying to find ways to reach Britain. And that’s why there must be a credible deterrent.

The Prime Minister’s immigration problem doesn’t stop with the Channel migrant crisis, either.

Sir Keir this week announced plans to slash net migration and reduce Britain’s addiction to cheap foreign labour.

The Prime Minister unveiled plans to ramp up deportations by increasing the number of offenders eligible for removals, overhaul how Article 8 of the ECHR is used in immigration cases, scrap the social care visa route, require foreign workers to take graduate level jobs and boost English language skills.

Firms that want to hire from abroad must also demonstrate how they are training domestic workers for roles.

The Home Office has predicted its changes will lead to 100,000 fewer people coming to the UK, meaning net migration could settle at around 240,000-250,000 by the end of this Parliament in 2029.

This would mean additional people equivalent to the population of Plymouth every year, heaping more pressure on housing, the NHS, schools and indeed social cohesion.

Much of the focus over the past week has been on the Prime Minister’s “island of strangers comment”. Those on the left have claimed it was echoing Enoch Powell’s rivers of blood speech.

The flagship announcement in the Immigration White Paper – increasing the threshold for the Skilled Worker Visa to graduate-level roles – will reduce the number of people coming to the UK by 39,000.

Migrants will also need to wait 10 years rather than five to apply for settlement or citizenship, although workers who significantly contribute to society, such as nurses, doctors and engineers, could be fast-tracked. This will lead to 18,000 fewer arrivals, the Home Office believes.

And, perhaps crucially, sectors which hire large numbers of migrant workers will be ordered to draw up workforce strategies to end their reliance on cheap foreign labour.

They will only be able to hire from abroad if there “have been on long term shortages, on a time limited basis”.

And that’s where the Prime Minister has fallen into a trap on both legal and illegal migration. He’s promised a radical overhaul.

He’s promised a “substantial” reduction in small boat crossings, an end of abuse in the asylum system and a fall in net migration. While net migration figures will show a sharp fall when they are next published, that will be off the back of reforms introduced by former Home Secretary James Cleverly.

And it will still see net migration far above historic highs. Higher than when Britain voted to leave the EU to regain control of our immigration policies.

So the British public are unlikely to buy any argument that a substantial reduction in net migration, to 250,000, is enough.

As Karl Williams, from the Centre for Policy Studies put it: “We've had 30 years of broken promises on immigration; no sign of change here.”

Sir Keir cannot afford for people to think his plans do not match his rhetoric.

Labour's chances in the next election depend on it.