The same story had played itself out across Europe. Even while he took immigration to country-changing levels Tony Blair had sometimes wanted to look tough on immigration. In 2000 there were 30,000 failed applicants for asylum in the United Kingdom – a third of the 90,000 who had applied for asylum in 1999. In that year only 7,645 failed asylum seekers had been removed from the country. The target was decided to be impossible to achieve and too divisive, politically difficult and financially costly to achieve.9 For parties of the right – fearful as they were of the attribution of base motives – it remained even harder for them to get a grip on the problem. As a stunt in 2013 (under a Conservative majority government) the Home Office organised a number of vans with advertising posters along the sides to drive around six London boroughs where many illegal immigrants lived. The posters read ‘In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest’, followed by a government helpline number. The posters immediately became politically toxic. The Labour Shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, described them as ‘divisive’ and ‘disgraceful’. The campaign group Liberty not only branded the vans’ message as ‘racist’ but also ‘illegal’. After some months it was revealed that the pilot scheme had successfully persuaded only 11 illegal immigrants to leave the country voluntarily. The then Home Secretary, Theresa May, admitted the scheme had been a mistake and too ‘blunt’, and it was not repeated. Of course, the scheme had not been intended to genuinely persuade the up to one million illegal migrants in Britain to return home, but to reassure the rest of the population that their government was being tough. Subsequent efforts to arrest illegal migrant workers were met with fierce and forceful opposition on the streets by left-wing campaigners. That this was all a farce can be seen from the fact that Britain only has around 5,000 detention spaces available in the entire country and that enforced removals only ever reach around 4,000 a year: these comprise roughly equal thirds of prisoners, failed asylum seekers and immigration offenders.