Let's presume Sir Keir Starmer wants to win the next election. Let's likewise presume he has no desire to be replaced as Prime Minister in the next year or two by Wes Streeting or Angela Rayner or anybody else.
He's a politician, after all, and politicians delight in power - Starmer more than many, I would think. I also recommend that he's at least averagely intelligent, and need to have the ability to weigh up the opportunities of any policy prospering.
After the struggles, compromises and embarrassments included in achieving high office, Starmer has no intention of throwing all of it away. Why, then, does he show every indication of doing so?
On the single concern that may matter most to a bulk of citizens, he is hurtling towards specific catastrophe, while rejecting himself any possibility of an escape path. I indicate the boats discovering the Channel.
Numbers of migrants doing the 21-mile journey are up by 42 percent on the exact same period last year. An analysis by The Times, using similar modelling as Border Force, forecasts that 50,000 people will cross the Channel in little boats in 2025. That would be a yearly record - and a stonking ordeal for Sir Keir.
Peering into his mind, I reckon there are 2 main possible explanations for his behaviour. One is that he is deluding himself. He really believes numbers will come down once the procedures he has actually taken start to work.
If Starmer still believes that his policies - tossing numerous millions at the French authorities, enhancing intelligence and utilizing boosted police powers - will minimize the numbers, that really is the accomplishment of hope over experience. The other possibility is that he is currently starting poorly to understand that his stratagems won't bear much, if any, fruit. So he and the Government have actually chosen to pull the wool over our eyes. A deadly technique.
There have actually been 2 such examples in current days. Having said in an online post on Monday that he felt 'angry' about the numbers crossing the Channel (how does he think the rest people feel !?) the PM made a slippery claim.
Sir Keir Starmer now has absolutely nothing formidable in his locker, Stephen Glover composes
Only 2,240 small-boat migrants were sent home in the 12 months to March, 3 percent fewer than in the previous year
He boasted that 'nearly 30,000 individuals' had actually been gotten rid of from the UK by this Government. Sounds good. But in reality this figure refers to all types of migrants who have no right to be in our country. Only 2,240 small-boat migrants were sent out home in the 12 months to March, 3 per cent less than in the previous year.
A lie? Good God no! We mustn't accuse Labour prime ministers, far less Sir Keir Starmer KCB, PC, KC, MP, of informing purposeful fibs. Shall we opt for an analytical deception?
The other circumstances of the Government not being completely directly was the Office's claim earlier today that there have been more migrants this year since of balmy weather. These are called 'red days', when the sea is calm.
But an analysis by my coworker David Barrett in the other day's Mail shows that in temperate May last year there were 21 'red days' but just 2,765 arrivals, about 1,000 fewer than last month. In mild June 2024 there were 20 'red days', though only 3,007 migrants were recorded crossing the Channel.
The most likely explanation is that last May and June the Government's strategy to send illegal migrants to Rwanda had finally cleared persistent judicial obstruction. Some, a minimum of, were hindered from crossing the Channel for worry of being packed off to the main African country.
The Rwanda plan was far from perfect - it was costly, and liable to legal challenge because the nation has an authoritarian government - but at least it had some prospect of deterring migrants. The inbound Labour Government discarded its only possible means of curbing the boats.
Helpful for Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who in a speech tomorrow will undertake to resurrect a strategy noticeably similar to the Rwandan one.
Starmer now has absolutely nothing powerful in his locker. Literally absolutely nothing. He can provide additional millions to the French government but it will not make much, if any, distinction. French police will still loll around on beaches, thinking of the sand castles they made as kids, as they view migrant boats setting off for Dover.
The fact is that the French will never ever strain themselves since every migrant who leaves their shores is one less migrant for them to stress about. It is naive to think of that they are ever going to be zealous on our behalf.
STEPHEN GLOVER: Keir Starmer is a soft male who can not comprehend the real wicked Britain is dealing with
Nor will Sir Keir's idea of improving intelligence and law enforcement be decisive. As for Labour's reported intention to tinker with Article 8 of the Human Rights Act so regarding prevent phony asylum claims, that is welcome, however even if it becomes law it is not likely to have much result on overall numbers.
Are the PM and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper starting to panic as they realise they don't have a single policy most likely to fulfil their pledge of 'smashing the gangs'? If they aren't desperate, they jolly well need to be.
Three weeks back, Sir Keir was embarrassed after he had praised talks over Rwanda-style 'return centers' only minutes before his Albanian equivalent, standing a couple of feet away, ruled out any cooperation.
Maybe the Government will encourage the Kosovans or the North Macedonians to establish some sort of plan. But if it does, it will take months, if not years, and people will question why Sir Keir cancelled an arrangement that he is at least partly trying to revive.
I've no particular wish to toss Starmer a lifeline however, as I've suggested before, there's one possible path out of the hole he has dug for himself - though it would take huge decision and courage for him to take it.
There are many uninhabited British islands off our coast and more afield. Pick one of them. Create a camp similar to those on the Isle of Man that housed alien internees during the War. Build hundreds of huts - instead of erecting less sturdy tents, as ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe has actually proposed.
Recruit medical professionals and authorities to examine claims faster than happens at present - and then return most migrants to where they came from. The cost of setting up such a camp would be a fraction of the ₤ 4.3 billion spent in 2015 on housing migrants and asylum applicants.
Can anyone tell me why not? Few migrants would expensive kicking their heels for months in a camp, however gentle, so it would be a marvellous deterrent. Cross the Channel, and you will be our visitor - on a possibly windy island rather than in a four-star hotel.
Granted, in order to stave off vexatious legal challenges we 'd probably need to derogate from the European Court of Human Rights, which would be an action too far for our cautious Prime Minister.
But he doesn't have a better idea. In fact, he hasn't got any concepts at all that are liable to stem the growing numbers of people streaming throughout the English Channel.
Things can just get even worse - and as they do Labour will sink ever lower in public esteem. Does Sir Keir Starmer really wish to be the signatory of his own political death warrant?
RwandaAngela RaynerLabourWes Streeting
