Let’s assume Sir Keir Starmer wants to win the next election. Let’s also presume he has no desire to be changed as Prime Minister in the next year or so by Wes Streeting or Angela Rayner or anybody else.
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He’s a politician, after all, and politicians enjoy power - Starmer more than many, I would think. I likewise recommend that he’s at least averagely intelligent, and ought to be able to weigh up the chances of any policy succeeding.
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After the struggles, compromises and humiliations involved in accomplishing high workplace, Starmer has no intention of throwing everything away. Why, then, does he show every sign of doing so?

On the single problem that might matter most to a majority of citizens, he is hurtling towards certain catastrophe, while denying himself any possibility of an escape route. I mean the boats discovering the Channel.

Varieties of migrants doing the 21-mile journey are up by 42 per cent on the exact same duration in 2015. An analysis by The Times, using comparable modelling as Border Force, forecasts that 50,000 people will cross the Channel in small boats in 2025. That would be an annual record - and a stonking debacle for Sir Keir.

Peering into his mind, I reckon there are 2 primary possible descriptions for his behaviour. One is that he is misguiding himself. He actually believes numbers will boil down when the steps he has taken start to work.

If Starmer still thinks that his policies - throwing hundreds of millions at the French authorities, improving intelligence and utilizing 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 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 deadly method.

There have actually been 2 such examples in recent 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 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 out home in the 12 months to March, 3 per cent fewer than in the previous year

He boasted that ‘nearly 30,000 people’ had actually been eliminated 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 per cent less 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 informing deliberate fibs. Shall we choose an analytical sleight of hand?

The other instance of the Government not being totally directly was the Home Office’s claim earlier this week that there have been more migrants this year since of pleasant weather condition. These are called ‘red days’, when the sea is calm.

But an analysis by my associate David Barrett in the other day’s Mail shows that in temperate May last year there were 21 ‘red days’ however just 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 explanation is that last May and June the Government’s strategy to send illegal migrants to Rwanda had actually finally cleared persistent judicial obstruction. Some, a minimum of, were hindered from crossing the Channel for worry of being packed off to the central African nation.

The Rwanda scheme was far from best - it was pricey, and liable to legal challenge because the country has an authoritarian federal government - but at least it had some prospect of deterring migrants. The incoming Labour Government discarded its only possible ways of curbing the boats.

Helpful for Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who in a speech tomorrow will carry out to resurrect a plan 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, difference. French authorities 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 reality is that the French will never strain themselves since every migrant who leaves their shores is one less migrant for them to fret 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 guy who can not comprehend the real evil Britain is facing

Nor will Sir Keir’s idea of enhancing intelligence and police be decisive. As for Labour’s reported intention to play with Article 8 of the Human Rights Act so regarding preclude fake asylum claims, that is welcome, but even if it ends up being law it is not likely to have much result on general numbers.

Are the PM and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper starting to worry as they realise they do not have a single policy most likely to satisfy their guarantee of ‘smashing the gangs’? If they aren’t desperate, they jolly well must be.

Three weeks back, Sir Keir was humiliated after he had praised talks over Rwanda-style ‘return centers’ only minutes before his Albanian counterpart, standing a couple of feet away, eliminated any cooperation.

Maybe the Government will encourage the Kosovans or the North Macedonians to set up some sort of plan. But if it does, it will take months, if not years, and people will wonder why Sir Keir cancelled an arrangement that he is at least partly attempting to restore.

I have actually no particular desire to throw Starmer a lifeline however, as I have actually recommended before, there’s one possible course out of the hole he has dug for himself - though it would take massive decision and guts for him to take it.

There are numerous uninhabited British islands off our coast and additional afield. Pick one of 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 proposed.

Recruit physicians and authorities to examine claims more quickly than takes place 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 invested in 2015 on housing migrants and asylum applicants.

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 visitor - on a possibly windy island instead of in a four-star hotel.

Granted, in order to ward off vexatious legal obstacles we ’d most likely have to derogate from the European Court of Human Rights, which would be an action too far for our cautious Prime .

But he does not have a much better concept. In reality, he hasn’t got any concepts at all that are liable to stem the growing numbers of people 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 actually desire to be the signatory of his own political death warrant?

RwandaAngela RaynerLabourWes Streeting