I'm joined this afternoon by Anna
Gonzalez, deputy head of the immigration
department at Wilson's Solicitors. Anna
Gonzalez, thanks very much indeed for
coming onto the program today. What do
you think that the government can do to,
as Lord Blancet puts it, grip this
issue? Uh, thanks for being here. Good
afternoon.
>> Hello. Good afternoon. Hi. That is a
very loaded question as you know and
something that we could be speaking
about for hours now. It is very sad to
see how polarizing im immigration has
become as a public debate and it is very
sad to to see that the public opinion
thinks it to be more important than
economy and the NHS. I certainly think
they are not really. It is a it is an
issue there really problematic issues
around the asylum system but I do not
think this is the way to deal with this.
>> So what is the way to deal with it?
Okay. So the there are no easy answers
here as we all know. For me um I
actually believe that what
K star and IT Cooper were going on about
last when they were in opposition they
were very much advocating for safe
routes in to join to for for asylum
seekers to come to the UK. There's been
the issue of a processing center set up
in France something that the French
government has offered well offered a
very long time ago. To my knowledge that
offer has not been withdrawn and
something that Cooper herself in
parliament as an opposition member of
the Labor party in the last government
very extensively spoke about. It's
interesting that this has seems to have
disappear disappeared once they they
came into into power. All this all the
shift all the emphasis seems to have
been shifted to smashing the guns which
of course is the right thing to do.
Those are evil organizations that
exploit people and put their lives at
risk making allowing them to cross
channel in such dangerous conditions.
But I do believe most of us in the field
believe that it would this would go a
long way to stopping those crossings
if asylum seekers.
>> But and can I put to you the the notion
that for the Labour party this is now
hugely problematic because those polling
numbers indicate that among the public
they've lost that argument. the argument
that they were advancing when they were
in opposition which was an argument of I
think one could characterize as you are
as a greater degree of sort of tolerance
towards the whole the whole concept of
asylum seekers. I mean the evidence in
this poll is that they've lost that
argument. Do you think they've still got
the wherewithal and the capacity
intellectually to try and turn it
around?
>> I believe they do. I believe they do.
The problem that we're seeing at the
moment, this is on my own my own
personal and professional opinion is
that they are pandering to what certain
political organizations are saying
dehumanizing asylum seekers. This is
something that they never used to do and
sadly they seem to have fallen into a
trap. One issue that is very
contentious, the most contentious issue
perhaps and there are many is the issue
of hotel use. Now we wouldn't need to
put so many people in hotels if we allow
them to work in the UK on arrival. hotel
use would significantly drop. This is
something that can very easily be done.
Asylum seekers can only can only work in
the UK once their claim has been
outstanding in the system for 12 months.
And then in those cases, they can only
work in a handle of professions. They
cannot really join the labor the labor
market as everybody else. And at a time
where they used to be and we still have
causal labor shortages, but we used to
have very severe labor shortages. A
couple of years ago, there were plenty
of asylum seekers sitting around
languishing for in hotels waiting for
the cases to be processed. People who
were had meritorious asylum claims. Not
all of them do, but many many do and the
statistics show. And they could have
been working and contributing, paying
taxes, and not being a burden on the
taxpayer. Most asylum seekers do not
want to be a burden on the taxpayer.
That is a fact.
>> But but to change that, you've got to
win over public opinion. And those
people that are standing protesting
against uh hotel accommodation for
asylum seekers are highly likely to
protest vocally against the idea of
allowing asylum seekers to work in the
UK while they are waiting for their
applications to be processed. whatever
the economic realities of that may be.
>> But why? You see the thing is the job of
the government is just to try to change
hearts and minds and not just trying to
out outreform reform because this is
what they're trying to do. I do believe
that by allow look just look at look at
the jobs. There's been a lot of ferrari
about asylum seekers taking working
illegally for um for food delivery
companies like Deliveroo for example or
others delivery companies. These are
jobs that British nationals do not want
to do. So I don't understand why the
British public would be against those
who come to the UK, make an application
and then work. This is the argument that
is actually touted by people. I do not
mind people coming to the UK as long as
they contribute and they do their bit.
Well, these asylum seekers are running
away from danger. Well, by the most
part, not all of them are married asylum
seeker seekers. Those who are not and
have their case refused, they will have
to be removed. And people are removed.
This is the other thing that the
government doesn't explain. Removals do
happen. And it's not just the standard
charters that we get every now and again
with people with criminal convictions.
Normal people like you and I who had a
case or thought they had a case and it
didn't work out. They had been sent to
other countries or they left
voluntarily. This is never this never
gets spoken about.
>> Anna Gonzalez, thank you for your
contribution to our program this
afternoon. Anna Gonzalez is the deputy
head of the immigration department at
Wilson's Solicitors. Also with me this
afternoon, Robert Bates, research
director at the Center for Migration
Control. Uh Robert Bates, thanks for
being on the program. We just heard
there from Anna Gonzalez who is
effectively saying, I think that Labor
needs to uh get back to its instinctual
approach rooted in decades of Labor
Party uh policy and philosophy uh and
really kind of push back against some of
the populist narrative that is, for
example, fueling some of those protests
outside uh hotels housing asylum
seekers. Do you think that that's a
viable path for the government to follow
or do you think that they've already
lost the argument and like Lord Blanket
they need to start embracing more
radical approaches?
>> I think un uh unfortunately for you to
call that the Labour party have now sort
of unmold themselves from perhaps the
more ideological underpinnings on this
issue and are now effectively coursing
the majority population and not trying
to convince them of Labour party's
position. We know that um twothirds of
the country now are in favor of
deporting all those that arrive in the
country illegally. And we are obviously
also seeing the political weather being
set by the reform party who are now
talking about mass deportations and the
conservative party now also having a
conversation about the ECR. Um so that
this is where the public are and I think
when actually you look at sort of
Labour's track record over the last 12
months where the number of people in
hotels has increased by 8% the number of
people coming across on small boats
increased by 46% and we saw a record
number of asylum applications in the
last 12 months as well. There is a
general sense amongst the public now
that the Labour party have lost control
of this situation and really some of the
suggestions and answers that they've
tried to put forward since they entered
um government such as the one in one out
uh scheme with France really in in the
eyes of most of the British uh
population clearly as this poll shows
don't go anywhere near far enough
because of course what Kiss has really
inherited was a situation that was
started by the Conservative party. The
chaos with the small boats began in 2018
um and public anger has been growing
since then. We've seen the the cost of
the asylum budget have exploded 10fold
since 2019. So this is a chaos and a
situation that was really started under
conservatives but unfortunately for K
star it's now something that he is
really going to get pummeled at as I
think this conversation reaches a
critical mass about what needs to be
done.
>> So what do you think he needs to do just
give in to the populist sentiment?
>> Well I think that would be a very
popular uh uh popular position. I think
if he was to come out and obviously it's
something that he he would never
countenance. If he was to come out and
start sort of adopting some of the
policies that reform are talking about
in terms of actually removing a large
number of people of course only about 4%
of those people that have actually come
on small boats have been uh deported or
removed from the country. So that's a
tiny number and he actually made a
conscious effort to really increase
those returns to countries of origin or
to bring back a third country scheme
such as the conservatives were trying
albeit failed with the Rwanda scheme as
well. then I think there would there
would be a recognition from the public
that this is a uh a prime minister that
is actually trying to take this issue
seriously and is in the same on the same
page as them when it comes to bringing
down small boats when it comes to
actually reducing the numbers coming
across the um the channel. I don't
really think the the suggestion of
allowing them to work is something that
would be particularly popular because it
would of course have a huge pull factor
as well if individuals could see that
they were able to come to Britain and be
supported by the home office and
provided accommodation but at the same
time be able to make money for
themselves. I think that would actually
increase numbers. So what he really
needs to do is he really needs to put in
place a strong deterrent which I don't
think from the sort of mish mash the
jigsaw of ideas that he's he's lobbied
for in the last 12 months he's got to
grips with yet.
But do you accept what Anna Gonzalez was
just saying a few minutes ago that if
you did allow asylum seekers to work,
that would be an economic plus for the
country? It wouldn't be an economic
minus. And why not go out there and make
that case in a bid to try and turn
public opinion around?
>> Well, well, he's welcome to try and and
turn public opinion around, but I do
think it is far too gone for him. I
don't think the economic arguments um
are that strong. We know that there is a
sort of a large degree of economic
inactivity amongst um refugees. I think
that the roles that they would probably
be going into would be um relatively low
wage and low skilled and there would
also therefore need to be a large degree
of support under um under various sort
of sections of the immigration act. So
there would be a need for the taxpayer
to continue having to um spend billions
of pounds each year to support them
whilst their actual application was
being processed. So I don't really think
it would um would be a silver bullet to
this problem and I really don't think
Karma would be politically well advised
to go down making that case because he
would I think he would quite frankly be
torn to shreds at this point.