Britain still needs an active foreign policy

One of the sticking points I have with contemporary right wing nationalism is the solipsism. There is a widespread belief that the world will leave us alone if we simply withdraw from it, and that immigration is resolved primarily at the border. I do not think so.

I think immigration is Europe’s forever war. I don’t see an end point to the mass displacement of peoples, and if we are going to secure our borders, we must do it both at the border and overseas. Immigration control is as much a matter of foreign policy.

As regards to asylum, it is my view that we must re-establish the concept that refuge must be temporary, refugees must go back, and refuge should be in the closest country to the country of origin. In order to uphold that principle, Britain, along with European allies, must chip in and, if necessary, run and secure refugee camps.

But it doesn’t stop there. Perhaps one of the most interesting stories to emerge for some weeks was soothing highlighted by Visegrad 24 last night, featuring satellite tracking data of the illegal Chinese fishing amada off the coast of Peru.

This by no means a new development. Illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing (IUU) has been going on for decades, but it’s become especially acute since 2016. The Chinese fleet has ravaged their own waters and are now raiding fisheries the world over, from Peru to the Philippines to West and East Africa.

According to the Economist, the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), a London-based NGO has identified some 138 Chinese vessels fishing in waters off Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya and Madagascar. Interviews with crew members suggest that illegal fishing is rampant. Most of the interviewees said they regularly and deliberately killed protected species, such as turtles, dolphins and false killer whales. Fully 80% said they systematically engaged in shark finning, an illegal practice, targeting several endangered or critically endangered species.

Illegal fishing is also harming local fishermen. Chinese vessels routinely fish in waters close to the shoreline reserved by law for small-scale local fishers. According to the EJF, Chinese trawlers in Mozambique often line their nets with a fine mesh, allowing them to catch smaller fish usually targeted only by locals. They have also been known to intimidate the local fishermen, ripping their nets and hounding them out of their usual fishing grounds. The volume of fish caught by small-scale fishers in Mozambique has slumped by 30% over the past 25 years.

Things are even bleaker for the non-Chinese crew members who staff China’s distant-water fleet. On one vessel eight Mozambican workers had to sleep in just two beds. On another there was no working toilet for the Filipino and Indonesian crew, who had to defecate off the side of the boat for an entire months-long voyage. Anyone who complained would be kicked, beaten or threatened with salary deductions. Crew members interviewed by the EJF said four of their comrades had died at sea, one of them by suicide.

Three-quarters of those interviewed said Chinese captains or recruitment agencies had confiscated their passports or birth certificates to prevent them from leaving the ship. Some were trapped at sea for months or even years. The EJF says such treatment amounts to “conditions of modern slavery”.

The Chinese government insists it has a “zero tolerance attitude” towards illegal fishing. Yet it appears to be using its geopolitical heft to facilitate the depredations of its fleet. Chinese vessels reportedly receive some $7bn a year in government subsidies. According to the EJF, in the south-west Indian ocean they sometimes travel under escort from the Chinese navy.

As such, instead of splurging money on junk such as Ajax, for imaginary battles against Russia on the plains of central Europe, we should be investing in our navy - doing what Britain does best, securing our interests at sea.

The reason this matter is because we’ve seen what happened with Mauritania back in 2001, when European fishing boats collapsed the local fishery - causing the local economy to collapse, forcing mothers and daughters into prostitution, in turn causing a widespread AIDS epidemic. This is one of the many push factors driving migration. As such, sea patrols to ward off illegal fishing boats is in the direct national interest. This kind of illegal fishing at this scale is a act of economic warfare, and one of the clandestine state-backed activities that could easily become a shooting war.

Ultimately, Britain is not let off the hook by disengaging from the world. The cynical nationalist view concedes the point made by the left that migrants only come here because we’ve bombed their countries. This is simplistic, geopolitically illiterate tosh, and is certainly not borne out by the Irish experience. Neutrality has not spared them from mass immigration from Africa.

As much as anything, Britain urgently needs to rebuild the Royal Navy is we want to keep the Falklands. It is unlikely that we could replicate the task force of 1982, even if we could get the QE carriers into a state of readiness. If Russia or China (or Argentina) decided to help themselves with a view to extending energy exploitation, there’s not a lot we could do to stop them.

Meanwhile, Britain is “no longer capable” of running a nuclear submarine programme after “catastrophic” failures pushed it to the brink, a former Royal Navy admiral has said. The former director of nuclear policy at the Ministry of Defence said delays in building new attack boats had reached record levels and had driven up the duration of patrols for crews from 70 days during the Cold War to more than 200 days now. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary is also said to be “decrepit”.

While I’m certainly not joining the clamour for war with Russia over Ukraine, if we have any vague aspirations of remaining a halfway serious country, our navy cannot be comprised of a dozen frigates and a couple of hangar queen destroyers. Geopolitics is heating up the world over, and if we’re not engaging then we’re reduced to helpless spectators. We may not be at war, but we are losing the peace, and a functioning navy buys us a stake in the outcome.