Let's assume Sir Keir Starmer desires to win the next election. Let's likewise presume he has no desire to be replaced as Prime Minister in the next year or so by Wes Streeting or Angela Rayner or anyone else.
He's a politician, after all, and political leaders delight in power - more than many, I would believe. I likewise suggest that he's at least averagely intelligent, and must be able to weigh up the chances of any policy succeeding.
After the battles, compromises and humiliations included in achieving high office, Starmer has no intent of throwing everything away. Why, then, does he reveal every sign of doing so?
On the single concern that may matter most to a majority of voters, he is speeding towards certain disaster, while denying himself any possibility of an escape route. I mean the boats encountering the Channel.
Varieties of migrants doing the 21-mile journey are up by 42 percent on the same period in 2015. An analysis by The Times, utilizing comparable modelling as Border Force, anticipates that 50,000 people will cross the Channel in little boats in 2025. That would be an annual record - and a stonking fiasco 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 boil down when the measures he has taken start to work.
If Starmer still believes that his policies - tossing hundreds of millions at the French authorities, enhancing intelligence and utilizing boosted police powers - will decrease the numbers, that truly is the triumph of hope over experience. The other possibility is that he is already starting dimly to realise that his stratagems will not bear much, if any, fruit. So he and the Government have actually chosen to pull the wool over our eyes. A fatal approach.
There have been 2 such examples in current days. Having stated in an online post on Monday that he felt 'mad' about the numbers crossing the Channel (how does he believe the rest of us feel !?) the PM made a slippery claim.
Sir Keir Starmer now has nothing powerful 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 'practically 30,000 people' had been eliminated from the UK by this Government. Sounds excellent. But in fact this figure refers to all types of migrants who have no right to be in our nation. Only 2,240 small-boat migrants were sent home in the 12 months to March, 3 per cent fewer than in the previous year.
A lie? Good God no! We should not implicate Labour prime ministers, far less Sir Keir Starmer KCB, PC, KC, MP, of telling intentional fibs. Shall we go for an analytical sleight of hand?
The other instance of the Government not being totally directly was the Office's claim earlier this week that there have actually been more migrants this year because of balmy weather condition. 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 in 2015 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 tape-recorded crossing the Channel.
The most possible description is that last May and June the Government's strategy to send out illegal migrants to Rwanda had actually finally cleared relentless judicial obstruction. Some, a minimum of, were deterred from crossing the Channel for worry of being loaded off to the central African nation.
The Rwanda plan was far from ideal - it was expensive, and accountable to legal difficulty due to the fact that the nation has an authoritarian federal government - however at least it had some possibility of deterring migrants. The inbound Labour Government threw away its only plausible ways of suppressing the boats.
Good for Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who in a speech tomorrow will carry out to resurrect a strategy strikingly comparable to the Rwandan one.
Starmer now has nothing formidable in his locker. Literally nothing. He can give further millions to the French federal government but it won't make much, if any, difference. French authorities will still loll around on beaches, thinking about the sand castles they made as kids, as they see migrant boats setting off for Dover.
The reality is that the French will never ever strain themselves since every migrant who leaves their coasts is one less migrant for them to fret about. It is ignorant to think of that they are ever going to be zealous on our behalf.
STEPHEN GLOVER: Keir Starmer is a soft man who can not comprehend the real wicked Britain is dealing with
Nor will Sir Keir's idea of improving intelligence and law enforcement be definitive. As for Labour's reported intention to tinker with Article 8 of the Human Rights Act so as to preclude fake asylum claims, that is welcome, but even if it ends up being law it is unlikely to have much impact on general numbers.
Are the PM and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper starting to stress as they understand 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 should be.
Three weeks ago, Sir Keir was humiliated after he had praised talks over Rwanda-style 'return centers' only minutes before his Albanian counterpart, standing a few feet away, ruled out any cooperation.
Maybe the Government will convince the Kosovans or the North Macedonians to set up 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 partly trying to restore.
I have actually no particular desire to toss Starmer a lifeline however, as I have actually suggested before, there's one possible course out of the hole he has actually dug for himself - though it would take huge determination and courage for him to take it.
There are lots of unoccupied British islands off our coast and further afield. Pick among them. Create a camp comparable to those on the Isle of Man that housed alien internees during the War. Build numerous huts - rather than setting up less tough camping tents, as ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe has proposed.
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Recruit doctors and authorities to assess claims faster than occurs at present - and after that return most migrants to where they originated from. The cost of setting up such a camp would be a portion of the ₤ 4.3 billion spent in 2015 on housing migrants and asylum hunters.
Can anybody inform me why not? Few migrants would expensive kicking their heels for months in a camp, nevertheless humane, so it would be a marvellous deterrent. Cross the Channel, and you will be our guest - on a possibly windy island rather than in a four-star hotel.
Granted, in order to ward off vexatious legal difficulties we 'd most likely 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 much better concept. In truth, he hasn't got any concepts at all that are liable to stem the growing varieties of individuals streaming across the English Channel.
Things can only worsen - 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
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By not Stopping the Boats, pM is Signing his Political Death Warrant
sherrypainter edited this page 2025-06-18 11:47:01 +08:00