I CONFESS my initial reaction to yesterday’s report on The Sun’s investigation into asylum seekers working illegally as food delivery drivers was a combination of frustration, disbelief and anger.
Frustration because it seems the Government is no nearer to achieving its goal of tackling English Channel crossings than it was on July 5 last year.
Migrants earn money delivering food to pay off their traffickers[/caption]
This scam, for that is what it is, would have made Del Boy proud[/caption]
Since coming into power, more than 41,500 small boat migrants have arrived — and that is just those we know about.
Take a look at Migration Watch’s Channel Tracker (migrationwatchuk.org/channel-crossings-tracker), which monitors the number of illegal arrivals.
I find it very difficult to believe that ministers do not see the connection between the ease with which traffickers can get migrants here, with a helping hand from Border Force and the RNLI.
Migrants are even seen on their way with a cheery wave by the French authorities assembled on the beach.
Having arrived on our shores and after a cursory check they are on their way to free accommodation, £40-plus pocket money a week and, now it seems, a job in one of the fastest-growing sectors in the economy.
It beggars belief
They earn money delivering food, to pay off their traffickers and to send cash home to their family so that they can eventually join them in the UK.
What makes me and most ordinary, hard-working, taxpaying and fair-minded citizens angry is that the Government seems to think this is acceptable.
After a year in office and abandoning the only possible deterrent, the Rwanda scheme — I make no apology for mentioning it again — and doing away with the legal requirement for the Home Secretary to remove illegal arrivals, the Government has done nothing to discourage migrants and traffickers.
On the contrary, its actions, or rather inaction, has simply encouraged crossings.
That’s why, by the end of the year, I expect there to have been more than 50,000 illegal arrivals.
In fact, the total for the year so far stands at 18,400, which is almost 50 per cent higher than the number of small boat migrants who had crossed at this point in 2024.
At this rate, could we see more than 60,000 arriving? I wouldn’t rule it out.
It seems the gig economy — Deliveroo, Just Eat and UberEats included — need not worry about a shortage of deliverers.
I confess, The Sun’s report yesterday almost made me smile.
How could you not laugh at the description of the scene outside a hotel in Peckham where “the entire courtyard was filled with bikes and bags surrounding a replica of the Only Fools And Horses [Reliant] three-wheeler”?
Asylum seekers are working illegally as food delivery drivers[/caption]
This scam, for that is what it is, would have made Del Boy proud.
As for the reaction of ministers. It beggars belief.
Policing Minister Dame Diana Johnson, who, in fairness to her, commended The Sun’s report, said: “The Sun investigation is right to highlight this illegal working racket, which undermines honest business and undercuts local wages.”
No kidding, minister.
While Dame Angela Eagle, the Border Security and Asylum Minister, “is meeting delivery companies next week, to help tackle illegal working in this sector.”
I find that exasperating.
This is the minister who sought to cast me a racist when I gave evidence to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, to explain that repealing the Safety of Rwanda Act would “encourage illegal immigration”.
I was right, it has.
She brushed this aside by asking what Migration Watch meant by the word “indigenous” on its website.
She now, it seems, is committing to talking to gig economy companies about what they intend to do to stop the illegal migrant workers, who are helping them make huge profits.
The business model for these companies thrives on easy-to-hire deliverers
Alp Mehmet
The real question is, what are you going to do about it Minister?
May I suggest that, if you are serious about stopping blatant law-breaking and removing one of the major incentives for migrants to make their way to the UK, you should:
- Ban the likes of Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat from permitting their drivers to rent out their accounts.
- Impose punitive fines on the companies that turn a blind eye to this dangerous practice.
- Make clear that migrants found to be working illegally while awaiting a decision on their asylum application will not be granted asylum.
- Require the companies to control and monitor the issue of licences.
- Applicants for these accounts must be properly vetted to ensure they have the right to work, but also ensure they do not pose a danger to those they deliver to — especially women and the elderly.
The business model for these companies thrives on easy-to-hire deliverers.
While that may serve their interests and those of migrants and trafficking gangs, it does nothing for the taxpayer.
Hard-working Brits are effectively subsidising the practice, by providing free accommodation and benefits to the migrants, who are, after all, people who have broken into our country and then been housed and looked after.
To repeat the words of the Policing Minister, they “undermine honest business and undercut local wages.”
They have to be stopped.
