Let's presume Sir Keir Starmer wishes to win the next election. Let's also 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 political leaders delight in power - Starmer more than a lot of, I would believe. I also recommend that he's at least averagely intelligent, and must be able to weigh up the chances of any policy being successful.
After the struggles, compromises and embarrassments associated with attaining high workplace, Starmer has no intention of throwing everything away. Why, then, does he show every indication of doing so?
On the single concern that may matter most to a majority of citizens, he is hurtling towards certain catastrophe, while denying himself any possibility of an escape path. I imply the boats discovering the Channel.
Numbers of migrants doing the 21-mile journey are up by 42 percent on the exact same duration in 2015. An analysis by The Times, utilizing similar modelling as Border Force, anticipates that 50,000 individuals will cross the Channel in small boats in 2025. That would be an annual 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 actually believes numbers will boil down when the steps he has actually taken start to work.
If Starmer still believes that his policies - tossing hundreds of millions at the French authorities, improving intelligence and using boosted police powers - will reduce the numbers, that really is the triumph 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 decided to pull the wool over our eyes. A fatal approach.
There have been two such examples in current days. Having said in an online post on Monday that he felt 'upset' about the numbers crossing the Channel (how does he believe the rest people feel !?) the PM made a slippery claim.
Sir Keir Starmer now has nothing formidable in his locker, Stephen Glover writes
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
He boasted that 'nearly 30,000 individuals' had actually been eliminated from the UK by this Government. Sounds good. But in reality this figure describes all types of migrants who have no right to be in our nation. 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 implicate Labour prime ministers, far less Sir Keir Starmer KCB, PC, KC, MP, of telling deliberate fibs. Shall we go for an analytical sleight of hand?
The other circumstances of the Government not being entirely straight was the Office's claim earlier this week that there have been more migrants this year due to the fact that of pleasant weather. These are called 'red days', when the sea is calm.
But an analysis by my associate David Barrett in yesterday's Mail shows that in temperate May last year there were 21 'red days' but only 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 taped crossing the Channel.
The most likely description is that last May and June the Government's plan to send unlawful migrants to Rwanda had actually finally cleared persistent judicial blockage. Some, at least, were discouraged from crossing the Channel for fear of being loaded off to the main African country.
The Rwanda plan was far from perfect - it was expensive, and liable to legal challenge since the nation has an authoritarian government - however at least it had some possibility of preventing migrants. The incoming Labour Government discarded its only possible means of curbing the boats.
Good for Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who in a speech tomorrow will carry out to resurrect a strategy strikingly similar to the Rwandan one.
Starmer now has nothing powerful in his locker. Literally nothing. He can give additional millions to the French federal government but it will not make much, if any, distinction. French cops will still loll around on beaches, thinking of the sand castles they made as children, as they see migrant boats setting off for Dover.
The fact is that the French will never strain themselves because every migrant who leaves their coasts is one less migrant for them to stress over. It is naive to picture that they are ever going to be zealous on our behalf.
STEPHEN GLOVER: Keir Starmer is a soft guy who can not understand the real evil Britain is facing
Nor will Sir Keir's idea of enhancing intelligence and police be decisive. When it comes to Labour's reported intent to play with Article 8 of the Human Rights Act so regarding prevent fake asylum claims, that is welcome, however even if it ends up being law it is unlikely to have much effect on total numbers.
Are the PM and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper starting to stress as they realise they do not have a single policy most likely to fulfil their guarantee of 'smashing the gangs'? If they aren't desperate, they jolly well must be.
Three weeks earlier, Sir Keir was humiliated after he had applauded talks over Rwanda-style 'return hubs' only minutes before his Albanian counterpart, standing a couple of feet away, dismissed any cooperation.
Maybe the Government will persuade the Kosovans or the North Macedonians to establish some sort of scheme. But if it does, it will take months, if not years, and individuals will wonder why Sir Keir cancelled an arrangement that he is at least partially trying to restore.
I have actually no particular wish to toss Starmer a lifeline however, as I've recommended before, there's one possible course out of the hole he has dug for himself - though it would take massive determination and guts for him to take it.
There are numerous unoccupied British islands off our coast and further afield. Pick among them. Create a camp similar to those on the Isle of Man that housed alien internees during the War. Build hundreds of huts - rather than setting up less tough camping tents, as ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe has proposed.
Recruit physicians and authorities to examine claims more rapidly than happens at present - and after that return most migrants to where they came from. The cost of establishing such a camp would be a fraction of the ₤ 4.3 billion invested in 2015 on housing migrants and asylum hunters.
Can anybody tell me why not? Few migrants would elegant kicking their heels for months in a camp, however humane, so it would be a marvellous deterrent. Cross the Channel, and you will be our visitor - on a perhaps windy island instead of in a four-star hotel.
Granted, in order to fend off vexatious legal challenges we 'd most likely need to derogate from the European Court of Human Rights, which would be an action too far for our mindful Prime Minister.
But he does not have a much better concept. In fact, he hasn't got any ideas at all that are liable to stem the growing varieties of individuals streaming across the English Channel.
Things can just become worse - and as they do Labour will sink ever lower in public esteem. Does Sir Keir Starmer truly wish to be the signatory of his own political death warrant?
RwandaAngela RaynerLabourWes Streeting
