Andrew Geddes* the POLITICS of IRREGULAR MIGRATION, HUMAN

Andrew Geddes* THE POLITICS OF IRREGULAR MIGRATION, HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND PEOPLE SMUGGLING IN THE UNITED KINGDOM 1. INTRODUCTION What factors underlie the social and political debate about irregular migration, people smuggling and human trafficking in the UK? Irregular migration flows rose to prominence in the UK towards the end of the 1990 with notorious and tragic incidents as migrants died either trying to enter the UK or while working in the UK. The chapter’s main argument is that responses to irregular migration draw from a repertoire of contentious immigration politics. This insight has been developed with regards to responses to post-colonial immigration (Hansen, 2000) and asylum (Gibney, 2003). My aim is to explore the ways in which longer-term patterning of migration politics and policy have continued to shape the ways in which migration to the UK is understood. The chapter analyses the salience of irregular migration flows, the links made to people smuggling and human trafficking networks particularly through media coverage of irregular migration, and then develops its argument about the longer-term historical patterning of responses to irregular migration, such as the ways in which irregular migration is related to the longer-term race relations framework that has structured UK migration policy and politics since the 1960s. It is, however, argued that more recent events such as the securitarian discourse and action that accompanied the post-9/11 responses to migration has also reinforced interpretations of irregular migration as a security threat, which distracts somewhat from the strong economic imperative both for those that move and those that employ them. The capacity for irregular migration to ascend the political and public agenda was made clear in February 2004 when the bodies of 20 Chinese workers were discovered in Morecambe Bay in north-west England. Apparently most had been smuggled into the UK by Chinese ‘snakehead’ gangs and had then found * Professor of Politics at the University of Sheffield. Elspeth Guild and Paul Minderhoud (eds.), Immigration and Criminal Law ... 371-385. © 2006 Koninklijke Brill NV. Printed in the Netherlands. ISBN 90 04 15064 1. Andrew Geddes work as cockle-pickers, an economic activity where labour market regulation was apparently lax to non-existent. There have been other tragic incidents too. In June 2000, 58 people from China suffocated to death in the back of a truck as an attempt was made to smuggle them into the UK. In August 2003 an 8-year prison sentence was imposed by a Belgian court on an Albanian reported to have smuggled 12,000 people into the UK from Belgium. The Belgian judge attacked the UK for ‘its poor (immigration) laws that attract illegal workers and offer them no protection’ (The Guardian, August 13, 2003). In February 2004 an Albanian man was sentenced to 10 years in jail for kidnapping women and forcing them to work in the sex industry and reimburse an £ 8,000 ‘travel bill’ (Coward, 2003: 24). In May 2004, a gang of people smugglers were convicted for charging a reported £ 8,000 to an estimated 400 people for a ‘club class’ smuggling service into the UK (The Times, May 29, 2004). It has been reported that prominent roles in people smuggling networks are played by Albanian gangs moving people from Albania to Italy, across Europe and then into the UK from Zeebrugge in Belgium while similar Chinese operations have been identified working through Rotter- dam as the final point of departure for the UK (Home Affairs Select Committee, 2001). The House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee also reported that estimates of the scale of the global irregular migration and human trafficking business ranged from $ 12 billion (estimate by the International Organisation for Migration) and $ 30 billion (United States estimate) (Home Affairs Select Committee, 2001). The irregular branch of the international migration industry also displays an inventiveness that can make it more difficult to control their activities. The effects have been particularly evident in some British towns where there is a reliance on seasonal and short-term labour. In Kings Lynn in Nor- folk, The Times reported in July 2003 that the Chinese population had risen from 300 to 5,000 Chinese. Many were irregular migrants, living in terrible conditions and receiving extremely low levels of pay for the (often arduous) work that they did. Much of this short-term and seasonal work in the UK has been control- led by around 5,000 ‘gangmasters’ (most of them running legitimate business operation) reportedly supplying up to 75,000 workers. Trafficked migrants are then portrayed as helpless victims of what Shadow Home Secretary David Davis called ‘… the modern day slave trade. Lured to Britain with little knowledge of English, illegal immigrants are forced to work 12 hours a day, six days a week, for derisory amounts of money. Health and safety regulations don’t apply. They are kept outside the confines of society and beyond the reach of the law. By doing nothing, the government is giving tacit consent’ (Mail on Sunday, Febru- ary 15, 2004). The day before, The Sun reported on the ‘wicked gangmasters’ that ‘exploit vulnerable men and women’. Private members legislation introduced by Labour backbench MP, Jim Sheridan, in 2004 with government backing sought to regulate the activities of these gangmasters by ensuring that they are regis- tered, that they abide by health and safety rules and that they pay at least the minimum wage to their employees. 372.

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