It is safe to say that Keir Starmer’s ‘smash the gangs’ strategy for tackling the small-boats crisis is not going according to plan.
Since Labour came to office, the number of migrants who have crossed the English Channel on small boats has surpassed 50,000. No British government has overseen as many illegal Channel crossings in such a short period of time. Home Office data show that 50,271 small-boat migrants arrived between 5 July 2024 – the day after Labour’s election victory – and this Tuesday. To put this into perspective, between 5 July 2023 and 11 August 2024, when the Conservatives were in power, there were 36,346 illegal Channel crossings.
There are many reasons why Labour has failed so catastrophically to stop the boats. One of the first things Starmer did as prime minister was declare the Rwanda deportation scheme – established under the last Conservative government – as ‘dead and buried’. Of course, no illegal migrants had yet been deported to Rwanda, meaning it’s impossible to know how effective a deterrent it could have been. But Starmer’s decision to kill the scheme so quickly gave the impression he was a pushover on illegal immigration. Subsequent events have only reinforced this impression.
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