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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 two by Wes Streeting or Angela Rayner or anyone else.

He's a political leader, after all, and political leaders relish power - Starmer more than a lot of, I would believe. I also suggest that he's at least averagely intelligent, and need to be able to weigh up the possibilities of any policy prospering.
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After the battles, compromises and humiliations associated with attaining high office, Starmer has no objective of throwing all of it 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 certain catastrophe, while denying himself any of an escape route. I suggest the boats coming throughout the Channel.

Varieties of migrants doing the 21-mile journey are up by 42 percent on the exact same period last year. An analysis by The Times, utilizing comparable modelling as Border Force, anticipates that 50,000 people will cross the Channel in small boats in 2025. That would be a yearly record - and a stonking debacle for Sir Keir.

Peering into his mind, I reckon there are 2 main possible descriptions for his behaviour. One is that he is misguiding himself. He truly believes numbers will come down as soon as the procedures he has actually taken start to work.

If Starmer still thinks that his policies - tossing hundreds of millions at the French authorities, improving intelligence and using enhanced police powers - will decrease the numbers, that truly is the accomplishment of hope over experience. The other possibility is that he is already starting dimly to understand that his stratagems will not bear much, if any, fruit. So he and the Government have decided to pull the wool over our eyes. A deadly approach.

There have been two such examples in current 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 writes

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 'practically 30,000 individuals' had been removed from the UK by this Government. Sounds good. But in truth this figure describes 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 accuse Labour prime ministers, far less Sir Keir Starmer KCB, PC, KC, MP, of informing intentional fibs. Shall we go for a statistical deception?

The other instance of the Government not being totally directly was the Home Office's claim earlier today that there have actually been more migrants this year since of balmy weather condition. 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 less than last month. In mild June 2024 there were 20 'red days', though just 3,007 migrants were tape-recorded crossing the Channel.

The most likely description is that last May and June the Government's plan to send out unlawful migrants to Rwanda had actually finally cleared persistent judicial blockage. Some, a minimum of, were deterred from crossing the Channel for fear of being loaded off to the central African country.

The Rwanda plan was far from perfect - it was expensive, and accountable to legal difficulty since the country has an authoritarian government - but at least it had some prospect of preventing migrants. The incoming Labour Government discarded its only plausible means of suppressing the boats.

Good for Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who in a speech tomorrow will undertake 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 however it won't make much, if any, difference. French authorities will still loll around on beaches, thinking of the sand castles they made as kids, as they watch 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 naive to envision that they are ever going to be zealous on our behalf.

STEPHEN GLOVER: Keir Starmer is a soft male who can not understand the true wicked Britain is dealing with

Nor will Sir Keir's concept of improving intelligence and police be definitive. When it comes to Labour's reported intent to play with Article 8 of the Human Rights Act so as to prevent bogus asylum claims, that is welcome, but even if it ends up being law it is not likely to have much result on total numbers.

Are the PM and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper beginning to stress as they understand they don't have a single policy likely to fulfil their promise of 'smashing the gangs'? If they aren't desperate, they jolly well need to be.

Three weeks ago, Sir Keir was humiliated after he had applauded talks over Rwanda-style 'return centers' only minutes before his Albanian equivalent, 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 scheme. But if it does, it will take months, if not years, and individuals will wonder why Sir Keir cancelled a plan that he is at least partially trying to restore.

I have actually no specific dream to throw Starmer a lifeline however, as I've suggested before, there's one possible path out of the hole he has dug for himself - though it would take huge decision and courage for him to take it.

There are lots of unoccupied British islands off our coast and further afield. Pick one of them. Create a camp similar to those on the Isle of Man that housed alien internees throughout the War. Build hundreds of huts - rather than erecting less tough camping tents, as ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe has proposed.

Recruit medical professionals and officials to evaluate claims more quickly than takes place at present - and then return most migrants to where they originated from. The expense of setting up such a camp would be a fraction of the ₤ 4.3 billion invested in 2015 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 humane, so it would be a wonderful 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 stave 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 careful Prime Minister.

But he does not have a much better concept. In truth, he hasn't got any ideas at all that are accountable to stem the growing numbers of individuals streaming throughout the English Channel.

Things can only become worse - and as they do Labour will sink ever lower in public esteem. Does Sir Keir Starmer really want to be the signatory of his own political death warrant?

RwandaAngela RaynerLabourWes Streeting