Labour's migration promises have failed to materialise
The weather is fine and warm, the seas are calm and the small boats crisis is getting worse by the day. Record numbers of immigrants are crossing the Channel to such an extent that even Sir Keir Starmer appears to have noticed.
After meeting Emmanuel Macron at the G7 summit in Canada, the Prime Minister conceded that the crisis was 'deteriorating'. Yet he came to power blithely denouncing the last government for failing to 'stop the boats' while junking the one deterrent available to the authorities, namely to remove asylum seekers to Rwanda.
He is now reaping the whirlwind of his complacency. If the small boats crisis cast a pall over the last months of Rishi Sunak's premiership it is doing the same for Sir Keir's first year in power. 'Smashing the gangs', like stopping the boats, was a central pledge that has not only failed to materialise but has made the Prime Minister look weak and ineffectual.
He made a promise he was unable to keep, a pattern of behaviour among recent political leaders that is more responsible than any for the rise of Reform UK. The latest attempt to salvage this policy involves a vague promise by France to allow its police to enter the water to stop migrants boarding boats. They are not allowed to at the moment and stand by watching the boats being loaded, but a long-promised legal reform could change that.
Of course, if migrants were prevented from getting on boats that might well act as a deterrent. But with thousands already waiting on the other side of the Channel, what motive is there for the French to keep them on their shores when they can pass the problem to the British?
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