Let's presume Sir Keir Starmer desires to win the next election. Let's likewise assume he has no desire to be replaced as Prime Minister in the next year approximately by or Angela Rayner or anybody else.
He's a politician, after all, and politicians enjoy power - Starmer more than a lot of, I would think. I likewise suggest that he's at least averagely intelligent, and ought to be able to weigh up the possibilities of any policy being successful.
After the struggles, compromises and humiliations associated with accomplishing high workplace, Starmer has no intention of throwing it all away. Why, then, does he show every indication of doing so?
On the single problem that might matter most to a bulk of voters, he is speeding towards particular disaster, while denying himself any prospect of an escape path. I indicate the boats stumbling upon the Channel.
Numbers of migrants doing the 21-mile journey are up by 42 per cent on the very same duration in 2015. An analysis by The Times, using comparable modelling as Border Force, predicts that 50,000 people will cross the Channel in small boats in 2025. That would be a yearly record - and a stonking fiasco for Sir Keir.
Peering into his mind, I reckon there are two main possible descriptions for his behaviour. One is that he is deluding himself. He really thinks numbers will boil down when the steps he has actually taken start to work.
If Starmer still thinks that his policies - throwing hundreds of millions at the French authorities, enhancing intelligence and utilizing enhanced law enforcement powers - will decrease the numbers, that really is the victory of hope over experience. The other possibility is that he is currently starting dimly to understand that his stratagems will not bear much, if any, fruit. So he and the Government have actually decided to pull the wool over our eyes. A fatal technique.
There have actually been 2 such examples in recent days. Having stated 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 nothing formidable in his locker, Stephen Glover composes
Only 2,240 small-boat migrants were sent home in the 12 months to March, 3 per cent less than in the previous year
He boasted that 'nearly 30,000 people' had been removed from the UK by this Government. Sounds good. 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 percent 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 intentional fibs. Shall we opt for an analytical deception?
housingauthority.gov.hk
The other circumstances of the Government not being totally straight was the Office's claim previously this week that there have actually been more migrants this year since of balmy weather. These are called 'red days', when the sea is calm.
But an analysis by my colleague 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 gentle June 2024 there were 20 'red days', though only 3,007 migrants were recorded crossing the Channel.
The most likely description is that last May and June the Government's strategy to send illegal migrants to Rwanda had finally cleared consistent judicial obstruction. Some, a minimum of, were discouraged from crossing the Channel for fear of being loaded off to the main African country.
The Rwanda scheme was far from ideal - it was costly, and responsible to legal challenge because the country has an authoritarian federal government - however a minimum of it had some possibility of discouraging migrants. The inbound Labour Government tossed away its only possible methods of suppressing the boats.
Good for Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who in a speech tomorrow will undertake to reanimate a plan noticeably comparable to the Rwandan one.
Starmer now has nothing powerful in his locker. Literally nothing. He can provide further millions to the French 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 watch 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 fret about. It is ignorant to imagine that they are ever going to be zealous on our behalf.
STEPHEN GLOVER: Keir Starmer is a soft male who can not understand the real evil Britain is facing
housingauthority.gov.hk
Nor will Sir Keir's idea of improving intelligence and law enforcement be definitive. As for Labour's reported intention to play with Article 8 of the Human Rights Act so regarding prevent bogus asylum claims, that is welcome, however even if it becomes law it is not likely to have much impact on total numbers.
Are the PM and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper starting to worry as they realise they don't have a single policy most likely to satisfy their guarantee of 'smashing the gangs'? If they aren't desperate, they jolly well ought to be.
Three weeks earlier, 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, eliminated any cooperation.
Maybe the Government will convince 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 question why Sir Keir cancelled an arrangement that he is at least partially attempting to revive.
I've no specific dream to throw Starmer a lifeline but, as I've recommended before, there's one possible course out of the hole he has actually dug for himself - though it would take massive decision and courage for him to take it.
There are many uninhabited British islands off our coast and more afield. Pick among them. Create a camp comparable to those on the Isle of Man that housed alien internees throughout the War. Build numerous huts - rather than erecting less sturdy tents, as ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe has actually proposed.
Recruit physicians and authorities to examine claims quicker than happens at present - and then return most migrants to where they originated from. The expense of setting up such a camp would be a portion of the ₤ 4.3 billion spent last year on housing migrants and asylum candidates.
Can anybody inform me why not? Few migrants would elegant kicking their heels for months in a camp, however gentle, so it would be a wonderful deterrent. Cross the Channel, and you will be our visitor - on a perhaps windy island rather than in a four-star hotel.
Granted, in order to stave off vexatious legal difficulties we 'd probably have to derogate from the European Court of Human Rights, which would be a step too far for our cautious Prime Minister.
But he doesn't have a better concept. In reality, he hasn't got any concepts at all that are responsible to stem the growing numbers 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
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By not Stopping the Boats, pM is Signing his Political Death Warrant
janiedoris6631 edited this page 2025-06-18 08:22:32 +08:00