Terrible price of our porous borders
The warning from Sir Alan West, the new security minister, that it could take as long as 15 years to deal with the Islamic radicalism that spawns terrorist attacks in this country will surprise no one.
We have learnt enough of the warped mindset of jihadists since September 11 to know that the roots go deep, and extirpating them will not be easy. The sheer scale of the threat is also daunting, with MI5 currently monitoring 200 terrorist cells across the country.
Against that background, it is crucial that the first lines of defence, Britain’s borders, are as secure as possible.
In fact, frontier security is an oxymoron. In an unforgivable act of neglect that is now exacting such a terrible price, this government has lost control of the nation’s ports of entry. It scarcely has a clue about who comes and who goes.Sir Alan is about to report to Downing Street on the security vetting of foreign doctors who take up posts in the NHS. Allegations that the failed London and Glasgow car bomb attacks were the work of such people suggest that vetting is pretty perfunctory.
If that particular route is made more difficult for those who would do us harm, they will have plenty of other options.
For example, it emerged yesterday that thousands of student visas are issued each year to foreign applicants who then fail to take up their university or college places. Yet the visas allow them to stay in this country quite legitimately for three years.
Given that nearly 400 of these missing students hail from Pakistan, the country with which most terrorist plots inevitably have some connection, this is disturbing.
The Home Office says it is aware of the problem and plans to remedy it – though nothing will happen until next year at the earliest. Just one example, perhaps, but how symptomatic of the slapdash way our borders are being policed.
Despite the tough-sounding rhetoric from ministers, is anyone really expecting the situation to improve? Porous borders have become a fact of British life.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/07/09/dl0901.xml