Shown the next election will not be all about the red wall, it is about the blue wall as well. Former Tory Heartlands where we have shown we are the only ones who can win, the only ones who can bring the change people crave and even better, with the winner richard in devon, sarah in somerset, and superb local government success, we can now proudly say the Liberal Democrats are back in the west country Cheering Ed Davey giving his speech in turn back at the party conference. We are downed by a back at the party conference. We are downed by a former back at the party conference. We are downed by a former liberal back at the party conference. We are | downed by a former liberal democrat director of policy. We are joined. How did he do . He director of policy. We are joined. How did he do . He did very well and i thought joined. How did he do . He did very well and i thought it joined. How did he do . He did very well and i thought it was joined. How did he do . He did very well and i thought it was a joined. How did he do . He did very well and i thought it was a very well and i thought it was a very powerful speech. Well and i thought it was a very powerfulspeech. He well and i thought it was a very powerful speech. He set out the challenges facing the country, the solutions from the lib dems to the challenges, but it was also a highly personal speech which really zoomed in on the problems in the Health Service and the reasons they need to be fixed and the personal speech of ed which zoomed in on the problems in the Health Service it was powerful and personal and it went down very well in the hall and it was powerful and personal. He down very well in the hall and it was powerful and personal. He seems to be playing was powerful and personal. He seems to be playing on was powerful and personal. He seems to be playing on the was powerful and personal. He seems to be playing on the dissatisfaction i to be playing on the dissatisfaction of tory voters, that would be fair to say . He would like to browse voters away from the conservatives . That is absolutely right. We are clear that our mission is to campaign in as many constituencies where we are the key challenges to defeat as many conservative mps as possible and to get the conservative government out a power and to start using liberal democrat influence in parliament to make the changes that add fun and he set out in his speech and he made it very plain that health is going to be absolutely at the heart of the liberal democrat campaign. The heart of the liberal democrat camaiun. ~ , the heart of the liberal democrat camaiun. ~ , the heart of the liberal democrat camaiun. ,. Campaign. Thank you very much indeed. Campaign. Thank you very much indeed we campaign. Thank you very much indeed. We are campaign. Thank you very much indeed. We are now campaign. Thank you very much indeed. We are now switching i campaign. Thank you very much | indeed. We are now switching to campaign. Thank you very much indeed. We are now switching to the subject of immigration, Suella Braverman about to deliver a speech on this in washington at a right wing think tank. It is on this in washington at a rightwing think tank. It is an existential rightwing think tank. It is an existential challenge rightwing think tank. It is an existential challenge for rightwing think tank. It is an existential challenge for the i existential challenge for the political and cultural institutions of the west. Just as it is a basic rule of history that nations which cannot defend their borders will not long survive, it is a basic rule of politics that political systems which cannot control their borders were not maintained the consent of the people and thus not long endure and you do not need to be a clairvoyant to see how this will all unfold. To understand the future, cast your mind back a couple of weeks, and a few thousand miles south east of the head to the tiny italian island of lampedusa, the population of 6000 then. Lampedusa were in a 24 hour period beginning on the 12th of september, over 120 boats carrying more than the 5000 Illegal Migrants made the 100 mile crossing from tunisia in africa to italy and within 48 hours illegal arrivals outnumbered the local population and a State Of Emergency had been declared. By the 20th of september, at least 11,000 had landed with migrants sleeping in the street, stored and filled and clashing with the police. These 11,000 are part of the estimated 133,000 people who have already come to italy illegally by sea in the First Six Months of this year. That number is almost double the number of arrivals at the same point in 2022 and in 2022 a total of 330,000 illegal Border Crossings into the eu were detected and it was an increase of 66 compared to 2021. It is worth noting that most numbers relating to illegal migration are approximations and nobody knows the true number of illegal arrivals and estimates in this area there will rarely turn out to be lower. America faces similar challenges and thousands of people illegally crossed the border on a daily basis and illegal migration to the us has in recent years gone from just under 2,000,020 21 to more than 2. 8 million this year. Illegal migration is notjust an event driven or a cyclical problem, but a permanent challenge for the developed nations in general andy west in particular. Unless we act, it will only worsen in the years to come. War, political instability and Climate Change will of course exacerbate migration flows and according to the un, at the end of 2022, there were over 108 million forcibly displaced people globally with 29 million considered to be refugees by the un hcr. But we must be honest and the fundamental drivers of this iggy pop defining challenge our economics and demography. Injanuary of the World Economic forum said migration would become one of the top 50 global risks the fundamental drivers of this park will defining challenge. It is a fallacy that as countries get richer, emigration from vendor clients, and emigration from a country tends to rise until it reaches a level of income of about 10,000 per person before declining. World bank data shows that more than 3 billion people live in countries where the average income is below this threshold and the potential for migration to increase yet further is truly colossal. The raw numbers show how demand for migration, legal or otherwise, it is likely to surge in the coming years, and so too does personal testimony. A2021 poll found that 16 of adults worldwide around £900 million wed like permanently to leave their own country and those numbers are not evenly distributed around the world. 37 of People Living in sub saharan africa, some 481 Million People, and 27 of those living in the middle east and north africa, around 156 million, say though that like to migrate. The ease with which some of them might reach europe poses a unique and deepening challenge. The fact is, our countries are exceptionally attractive and 4 of those polled, approximately 40 Million People, named uk as their preferred destination, and 80 , approximately 162 Million People, named the usa. These numbers are respectable more than half of our current total populations. Those in favour of a memorable approach when it comes to migration tend to say, so what . Isnt it a good thing that people in the world over want to come to the west and contribute . And why cant west and contribute . And why cant we observe and welcome them and wouldnt the problem of illegal migration and significantly reduce if they made it easier for people to come to our countries legally . There are four Core Arguments in opposition to uncontrolled and illegal migration, the civic argument, the practical argument, the Security Argument and the democratic argument. Firstly, the civic argument against uncontrolled and illegal migration. I believe that the nation state is one of the great civilising forces in the world and it creates a shared identity and and it creates a shared identity and a shared purpose and that does not need to have a racial component and typically bans people of different racial backgrounds together. Far from being an ugly emotion, but to some stairs people to heroism and kindness patriotism stairs people. It is a belief that we have a duty to others is precisely because they are our fellow countrymen, and in orderfor nationality to be sustainable, economically, culturally and in terms of public support, you need to encompass everyone. That in turn means that the country cannot grow exponentially and still maintain the harmony needed for everyone to feel that we are all in this together. And lets remember something that is all too often forgotten, integration inevitably takes time. If immigration is uncontrolled it makes it harder for society to adapt and accommodate new cultures and customs and for communities to meld together. Uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration and misguided dogma of multiculturalism has proven a toxic combination for europe over the last few decades and im not the first to point this out and in 2010 Angela Merkel gave a speech in which she acknowledged that multiculturalism had utterly failed and then the french president Nicolas Sarkozy and british Prime MinisterDavid Cameron echoed similar sentiments shortly thereafter. Multiculturalism makes no demands of the income to integrate and it has failed because it allowed people to come to our society and no parallel lives in it. They could be in the society but not of the society. And in extreme cases they could pursue lives aimed at undermining the stability and threatening the security of our society. We are living with the consequence of that failure today and you can see it play out in the streets of europe, from malmo to brussels to leicester. It is 13 years since Angela Merkel gave her speech and im not sure about very much has changed since. If people are not able to settle in our countries, and start to think of themselves as british, american, french or german, then something is going badly wrong. National identity is not something invented in an ivory tower or by advertising executives. The nation state has enjoyed because it needs the few means something that almost everyone because it means something to almost everyone and that is true the world over and so it therefore must be protected. Saying so does not make one anti immigrant and it does not mean you anti immigration either. I am the child of immigrants and it is no betrayal of my parents story to say that immigration must be controlled. There is an optimal level of immigration and it is not zero but there have been, there is more migration to the uk and europe in the last 25 years than in all the time that went before. It has been too much, too quick, with too little thought given to integration and the impact on social cohesion. The fact that the optimal level is hard to define and will vary across time and countries does not change the fundamental fact. Countries does not change the fundamentalfact. Norshould it fundamental fact. Nor should it blind fundamentalfact. Norshould it blind us from the simple truth, if Cultural Change is too vapid and too big, then what was already there is denoted and eventually it will disappear. Secondly, the practical argument against uncontrolled and illegal migration, the unprecedented rise in illegal migration to the uk via a small boat crossing from france has put unsustainable pressure on the uks Asylum System and the british taxpayer and approximately 109,000 people have illegally crossed the channel via small boats since 2018 including 45,000 alone last year. Consequently the cost of the uk public Asylum System has roughly doubled in the last year and now stands at nearly £4 billion. A decade ago the total cost of the taxpayer was around £500 million. In the uk is now spending £8 million per day on accommodating migrants in hotels and we are not unique in these challenges. In march roughly one third of all hotel rooms in ireland were being used to accommodate Asylum Seekers and refugees. In New York City it is accommodating some 40,000 migrants in hotels and earlier this month the new york mayor explained that the Migrants Crisis will destroy New York City. Recent analysis suggest it will cost new york approximately 10 million annually to support me roughly 810,000 Asylum Seekers who have arrived there after crossing the southern border this year the roughly 110,000. Pressure is on the state will compound over time. Accommodation can ever be magic out of thin airand accommodation can ever be magic out of thin air and neither can you improve schools and have Additional Health care and more roads and any of the other Public Services on which people rely and immigration is behind at least 45 of demand for new housing in england. More than one in five births are to foreign born mothers and due to immigration and high birth rates amongst foreign born mothers, english secondary schools need to find an extra 213,000 places by 2026 compared to 2020 and then of course there are the direct financial costs. For2014 there are the direct financial costs. For 2014 study by ucl concluded that almost no Illegal Migrants end up paying in taxes what they gained from the state in benefits. The National Security case against uncontrolled and illegal migration as well. Illegal migration also poses obvious threats to Public Safety and National Security and uk Police Chiefs have warned me of heightened levels of criminality connected to some small boat arrivals especially in relation to Drug Crime Exploitation and prostitution. People who choose to come across the English Channel illegally from another safe country, have already showed contempt for our laws and president macron claimed that Illegal Migrants and those waiting for a Residence Permit accounted for more than half of crime in paris and illegal migration is increasingly a tool exploited by hostile states and those acting on their behalf. Vladimir putin weaponised migration in 2021, sending thousands of Asylum Seekers via belarus to try and cross into poland and lithuania. In march italys Defence Minister said the exponential increase in the migratory phenomenon on departing from African Shores is also to a not insignificant extent part of the Clear Strategy of Hybrid Welfare that the wagner Group Division is implementing, using its considerable date in some african countries. And fourthly and maybe most critically, the democratic case against uncontrolled and illegal migration, and Opinion Polls and Successive National votes could not be clearer. People the world over want their governments to control their borders and the British Public back the uks Rwanda Partnership and the illegal migration act of about 2 1 and six in ten in red wall states support stopping migrants from illegally entering the uk with any means necessary and 72 of eu citizens are in favour of reinforcing Eu External Borders and more than half of americans said there was an invasion at the southern border when polled in august 2022. Who will be allowed to come into our country and become one of us is a fundamental issue who we allow. Without public consent, immigration is illegitimate, dismissing those with concerns is not merely unfair, it is dangerous. It race macro is at a criticaljuncture in the eu must find a way to meet the challenge of illegal Migration Europe is at a criticaljunction. The commission critical junction. The commission has criticaljunction. The commission has recognised the severity of the situation as evidenced by ursula von der leyens recent trip to lampedusa, because failure to do so will undermine the legitimacy of Democratic Institutions and create the conditions for more extreme politics. The uk is working closely with our european allies, both on the continent and in joint efforts upstream to combat the Smuggling Gangs and better secure the borders and we will always look for ways to deepen our cooperation on security, the most recent example is our new Working Arrangement with front x. To address further solution, to all of this, i must first broach a turbo and one of the most significant but underappreciated factors contributing to the global Migration Crisis is the global asylum framework. And by this i mean do very well intentioned legal conventions and treaties that say in effect that if you are fleeing persecution somewhere, you are entitled to make a claim for asylum anywhere. And irrespective of whether you arrived illegally or passed through multiple safe countries along the way, i country must consider it. A country. An estimated 40,000 people according to the un have died attempting dangerous and illegal migration since 2014 and although the actual figure is almost certainly higher. About half of these deaths occurred while attempting to cross the mediterranean and a thousand people died last year trying to cross from mexico to the us. Some 150 people have died attempting to cross the English Channel by small boat, narrowing or other clandestinely and is in the last five years. Rory or clandestinely names. These people will no doubt seeking a better life and some will no doubt have been genuine refugees but not all of them. Seeking asylum and seeking better economic prospects are not the same thing. Seeking refuge in the same thing. Seeking refuge in the first safe country reach or shopping around for a preferred destination are not the same thing. Being trafficked and transported against your will perhaps to be sold into sex slavery and being smuggled, asking someone to sneak you into a country, they are not the same thing. The extent to which the global asylum framework enables the obscuring of these categories creates huge incentives for illegal migration in this Legal Framework is rooted in the 1951 un Refugee Convention. It was created to help resettle people fleeing persecution following the horrors of the Second World War and the holocaust and was initially at least centred around europe and it was an incredible achievement of its age. But more than 70 years later, we now live in a completely different time and jet travel has transformed the cost and comparative ease of moving around the world and the internet has made people acutely aware of how different life is and how much higher wages are in other parts of the world. Smartphones enable smugglers to facilitate operations with great ease and its made communication between those who have undertaken a journey and others who might like to. When the Refugee Convention was signed, it conferred protection on some 2 Million People in europe and according to analysis by nick timothy for the centre for policy studies, it now confers the notional right to move to another country upon at least 780 Million People and it is therefore incumbent upon politicians and thought leaders to ask whether the Refugee Convention and the weight has come to be interpreted through our courts is fit for our modern age or in need of reform and the first article of the convention defines the term refugee as applying to those who are to a Well Founded Fear of being persecuted, for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion cannot safely reside in the country of their nationality. As one of life or freedom being threatened and i think most members of the public would recognise those fleeing a real risk of death and torture and oppression or violence as being in need of protection but as case law has developed, what we have seen in practice is an interpretative shift away from persecution in favour of something more akin to a definition of discrimination and there has been a similar shift away from a Well Founded Fear towards a credible or plausible fear and the practical effect of this has been to expand the number of those who may qualify for Asylum Antolovic the threshold for Asylum Antolovic the threshold for doing so. Let me be clear, there are vast areas of the world where it is extremely difficult to be gay or to be a woman and where individuals are being persecuted it is right that we offer sanctuary. But we will not be able to sustain an Asylum System if in effect simply being gay or a woman orfearful of or a woman or fearful of discrimination or a woman orfearful of discrimination in your country of origin is sufficient to qualify for protection. Article 31 of the Refugee Convention makes clear that it is intended to apply to individuals coming directly from a territory where their life was threatened and it also states that where people are Crossing Borders without permission, they should present themselves without delay to the authorities and must show good cause for any illegal entry. The uk along with many others including america interprets this to mean that people should seek refuge and claim asylum in the first safe country that they reach. Ngos and others including the Un Refugee Agency contest this and the status quo where people are able to travel through multiple safe countries and even reside in safe countries for years while they pick and choose their preferred destination to claim asylum is absurd and unsustainable. Nobody entering the uk by boat from france is flowing imminent peril and none of them have a good cause for illegal entry and the vast majority have passed through multiple other safe countries and in some instances have resided in safe countries for several years. There is a strong argument they should cease to be treated as refugees join their onward movement. There are also many whose journeys originate from countries whose ago that the public would from countries that the public would consider to be so, like india, turkey, albania, and most are simply economic migrants, gaming the system to their advantage. In europe we have added for the European Convention on european or human rights European Convention on have additional rights European Convention of human rights additional mirrors. They know full well that and those people not fit enough to make arduous journeys that lose out. In the uk roughly 70 of those arriving illegally on small boats are man aged roughly under 40 and this is a hypocritical position for the rest to maintain and by creating a market and we need to explore the global asylum framework. I think there are two main reasons, the first is simply it is very hard to renegotiate these instruments and if you have been getting 27 eu states to agree, try the un. The second is being braced being called a racist by liberal. 0rganisation. As if the uk doesnt have a powered history of human rights dating back to magna carta and the echr is all that is holding us back from becoming russia. America, canada, new zealand and japan seem to manage just fine. None of this is particularly novel, nor should it be particularly controversial. As home secretary, trees and make a call for britain to leave the echr and it was because of the party policy under Michael Howard to lead the dust might leave the Refugee Convention. I am really advocating for reform. While the underlying framework is both a connecting factor to the problem and a barrier to certain fixes, some countries have been more successful in tackling illegal migration bill brothers. Scalia had to cope with two major waves of illegal maritime migration across the pacific in the last two decades. In the last wave, before they stopped at the crosses, more than 52,000 unauthorised maritime arrivals and around 1100 deaths at sea were recorded between 2008 and 2014. Operation southern borders so boats intercepted and then those on board were either returned once they had travelled or taken to Immigration Detention Centres in third countries. There were some 400 illegal boat crossings in 2013, yet