As thousands of economic migrants continue to flood into Britain on small boats from the European mainland, a leaked intelligence report shown to the Mail newspaper on Sunday reveals that 4 in 10 newcomers are from war-free Albania.
The damning military report, which caused outrage among Britain’s conservative-leaning tabloids on Sunday, revealed that following an investigation into nine smuggling gangs operating across the English Channel, 37.5 percent of the 2,863 migrants escorted to Britain between June 1 and July 12 of this year were from Albania, a Balkans nation that has been war-free for more than 25 years.
The figure significantly outweighed the number of asylum seekers arriving from more legitimate countries. Just 363, or 12.7 percent were fleeing Afghanistan; 217, or 7.6 percent were from Iraq; and just 217, or 7.6 percent, had arrived from Syria.
The document, marked “Official Sensitive,” reported on the smuggling gangs’ operations in some detail, highlighting that smugglers were buying inflatable boats online from Chinese factories where they were transported to northern France to be used by migrants attempting the journey across the world’s busiest shipping lane. These vessels are being customized by the gangs to make them capable of transporting as many migrants as possible in one trip, where they are often abandoned on beaches across southern England or impounded by authorities.
Furthermore, the report admitted that the Royal Navy’s intelligence-gathering operation, as requested by the Home Office under the instruction of Priti Patel, “is currently limited by a lack of resource,” and with French authorities failing to report when they have successfully thwarted crossing attempts, it has become impossible to ascertain a complete picture of the gravity of the situation.
More than 18,000 migrants have now crossed the English Channel so far this year, with more than 500 individuals adding to that total over the course of the weekend — 337 in 10 boats were escorted to Dover Marina on Saturday, and another 176 people in five boats on Sunday.
Commenting on the explosive report, former UKIP and Brexit Party leader, Nigel Farage, described the chaos as a “national humiliation.”
“We have a lawless open border being abused by economic migrants,” he added, before questioning what Home Secretary Priti Patel planned to do about the situation.
“What does Priti Patel do in the face of this lawless, national humiliation? She shovels more money to the French. This is a disaster for the country and the Conservative Party,” he tweeted on Monday.
Dover’s Conservative Party MP Natalie Elphicke added: “If people are taking us for a ride, then we should show them the door,” a sentiment long expressed by genuine conservatives across Britain, and a key reason why 17.4 million Brits voted to leave the European Union and end freedom of movement with Europe in June 2016.
Under the current Conservative administration, illegal crossings from the European mainland have soared, with a total of 28,395 migrants landing on the southeast coast of England last year, more than three times the number reported for 2020.
In response, Boris Johnson and Priti Patel announced their intention to deport undocumented migrants who failed to apply for asylum in the many “safe” countries they invariably passed through on their way to the UK to asylum centers in Rwanda for processing. This scheme, however, has yet to see a single asylum seeker make the trip to Rwanda after a flurry of last-minute legal challenges made under the European Convention on Human Rights thwarted deportations.
