Sorry, but Britain does have to get tougher, and show that it is tougher, on illegal entry

What message is the UK trying to get out? If it is serious about limiting illegal migration, then it has to send people back

The shocking discovery of 39 bodies in a refrigerated container that had arrived in the UK from Belgium received, for the most part, an admirably calm and respectful response, even from our otherwise raucous and polarised parliament, and even from those media outlets generally hostile to migration.

The emphasis was on the personal tragedy of those who died; the suffering they surely endured; the desperation that must have led them to take the decision to leave their homeland, and the trauma for staff of the emergency services. Channel 4 postponed the broadcast of a documentary about evading border checks into the UK.

All of which is entirely right and proper. It has to be preferable to live in a country where this is the prevailing response to such deaths than in one where the public sentiment was negative, even vindictive.

But what happened – or was uncovered – at an industrial park in Essex raises far more questions than have so far been tackled. And the risk now is that they may not be asked at all, as the discussion veers away into a hue and cry about organised crime half a world away, now it has been established that all the victims were Chinese.

But those questions, which relate primarily to the UK and its security and asylum policy need to be asked. It is all very well for Shaun Sawyer, the National Police Chiefs’ Council “lead” (in the jargon) for modern slavery and human trafficking, to tell the BBC in the wake of the Essex deaths that “you can’t turn the UK into a fortress”, but one of the most elementary duties of a state is to control its borders, and the evidence of recent years, such as it exists, suggests that this country is not very good at it. This is partly why “taking back control” proved such a winning slogan for Leave before the EU referendum.

The first and most obvious question is how many people are actually getting through?

Of course, this is unknowable with any accuracy. Additional checks were reportedly introduced on containers after 58 Chinese people were found dead in the port of Dover 19 years ago. But is the latest incident a one-off, an attempt by Chinese gangs perhaps, to revive an old method after a long interval? Or is it rather a sign that other, maybe many other containers, have been crossing into the UK undetected?

And even if we allow that a container transporting 39 people may be an exception, smaller-scale arrivals by lorry are not. Many of the media reports on the container tragedy included just a couple of lines to the effect that, on the same day, nine people, suspected migrants, were rescued from the back of a lorry on the M20 in Kent. How often does this happen? How many in a week, a year?

The general lack of transparency is scandalous. The only way it became known that several thousand would-be migrants had arrived in the UK in the summer of 2015 during the general European migrant crisis was from a report by the then Chief Inspector of Prisons, published more than six months later, condemning the conditions in which many of them were (temporarily) held.

This summer there has been a similar official reticence about the people crossing the Channel in small boats. Oh, it’s not a big problem, is the impression left by official pronouncements, even as the defence secretary deploys bits of the navy for show. Of course, the authorities do not want to inflame public opinion, but the lack of authoritative figures – it would seem to be around 1,000 – only stokes fears that something is being concealed (like the inability of the UK coastguard and navy to police the border).

The second and third questions challenge two assumptions that underlie much of the discussion about migration, especially as it is conducted at the liberal end of the political spectrum. One is that people have to be desperate to make the high-stakes decision to leave their homeland – whether it is war, famine, poverty, or lack of rights – and then risk jumping on to a lorry or a moving train or being crammed on to a leaky boat. This is not always completely true, however.

In some cases, especially trafficking cases, people are misled as to the future that awaits them. In others, they have come so far that they cannot turn back. But the conclusion we are supposed to draw from this is that such desperate people cannot, morally, ever be turned away.

There is, though, an answer, and it’s the same answer that a senior French politician of the left – whether it was Michel Rocard or the founder of Medicins sans Frontieres and health minister, Bernard Kouchner – gave many years ago: “We cannot take upon ourselves all the misery of the world.”

That may be regrettable, but it is true – and the internationally recognised conditions for residency and asylum need radical updating to match the realities of today’s world.

The other theme – much favoured by charities and others – is that the best way to prevent hazardous journeys is to create legal paths into Europe. Shaun Sawyer’s answer to this was that there would still be those for whom illegal routes would be the only resort, and he is right. There might be a temporary hiatus, while the profiteers adjust, but the market would still be there.

All of this leaves governments, including the UK government, with a choice. If they want to control, and be seen to control, the borders – which is a prime demand of many citizens – they have to be a lot better coordinated than they currently are. They also have to be tougher. I half-wonder whether the popularity in the UK of the so-called Australian points-based system for admitting migrants is because it is assumed that we will adopt another part of this system: dispatching illegal arrivals to inclement island detention.

And the fourth question. What message is the UK trying to get out? If it is serious about limiting illegal migration, then it has to send people back – and make that fact known. According to a BBC investigation, 27,860 people were arrested for illegally entering the UK between 2013 and April 2016. It is not known how many are still here.

How many of those who succeeded in crossing the Channel by boat this year have been returned? Five per cent. Arriving illegally, even via other, entirely safe, countries, is no bar to receiving asylum or the right to remain. Maybe you think that is right. But why, as a would-be migrant, would you think the risks in trying to reach the UK were too high, when the odds on ever having to leave are so low?

As if the chances of being allowed to stay were not well known enough already, the BBC and others served up a graphic illustration. Even as the Essex container stood as a warning about not trying to reach the UK illegally, all over the airwaves was the thoroughly personable Ahmad al-Rashid, who had featured in a documentary about trying to reach the UK from war-torn Syria in 2015. Admitting that he had made some of his journey on the back of a lorry, he expressed delight in his current circumstances, having been granted asylum and been joined by his wife and child.

Not only did Rashid’s account suggest an almost unheard-of efficiency at the Home Office, it offered eloquent testimony to the rewards available at least to some of those who reach the UK illegally. Again, you may think this is the right way to behave and the mark of a civilised society; you may also regard Rashid as an exception – and you could be right on both counts. But Rashid’s story is not going to deter others from making supposedly risky sea crossings and lorry trips. On the contrary, hope of a similar happy ending will trump the fear of being frozen to death in an Essex business park any time.