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somewhere else. That gives us a much more useful question than: **?Why doesn't Britain just stop the boats??** The better question is: **?Where can Britain intervene in the chain to reduce the number of people making the journey in the first place??** That is the question the next chapters will examine. And there may be more than one answer. # Chapter Four ## Where Do We Start? By now, we have established something important. There is no single switch that the British Government can press to make the small boats disappear. The problem is a chain. People decide to make the journey. Smugglers organise it. Boats are launched. People arrive. Asylum claims are made. Cases are processed. Some people are allowed to stay. Some are refused. And some people who are refused are difficult to return. If we want to reduce the number of people arriving, we therefore need to attack the problem at several points. But where should we start? The first answer is obvious. **Stop making the dangerous journey attractive to the smugglers' customers.** That does not mean threatening people. It does not mean treating people cruelly. It means making the message clear. Getting into a small boat and crossing the Channel is not a guaranteed ticket into Britain. The journey is dangerous. The outcome of an asylum claim is not guaranteed. And if a person has no legal right to remain after the process has been completed, there must be a realistic system for returning that person. That message needs to be clear before somebody pays a smuggler. At present, a smuggler can sell a simple story: **?Get to Britain and your future will be better.?** Britain needs to replace that story with something more accurate: **?If you need protection, your claim will be considered. If you have no right to remain, the system will deal with your case and you may be returned.?** That is not a slogan. It is a policy message. But words alone will not solve the problem. The second part is much more important. **Britain needs decisions to be made quickly.** Imagine two people arriving on the same day. One has a genuine claim for protection. The other does not. The fair system should be able to identify the difference as quickly as possible. The first person should receive protection. The second should receive a refusal and, where legally possible, be returned. Neither person should be left waiting for years simply because the system cannot keep up. Speed matters because delay creates costs. It costs money to provide accommodation. It costs money to process cases. It costs money to deal with appeals. And it costs money when people remain in the system for long periods without knowing what will happen to them. A faster system would not necessarily mean a less fair system. In fact, a properly resourced system could potentially be both **faster and fairer**. The third part is returns. This is where governments face one of their hardest practical problems. It is no good saying, ?This person must leave Britain,? if there is nowhere for that person to go. Britain therefore needs agreements with countries that will accept their own citizens back. Those agreements need to work in practice, not simply exist on paper. That may require diplomacy. It may require negotiations. It may require Britain to use trade, development cooperation or other relationships to encourage countries to cooperate. But there must be a clear objective. If a person has no legal right to remain, the decision should have a meaningful consequence. Otherwise, the public will quite reasonably ask: **?What