Let's assume Sir Keir Starmer desires to win the next election. Let's also assume he has no desire to be changed as Prime Minister in the next year or two by Wes Streeting or Angela Rayner or anybody else.

He's a political leader, after all, and politicians enjoy power - Starmer more than a lot of, I would think. I likewise recommend that he's at least averagely intelligent, and need to be able to weigh up the chances of any policy being successful.

After the struggles, compromises and humiliations included in achieving high office, Starmer has no objective of tossing all of it away. Why, then, does he show every sign of doing so?

On the single issue that may matter most to a bulk of voters, he is hurtling towards certain disaster, while rejecting himself any prospect of an escape route. I suggest the boats coming throughout the Channel.
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Varieties of migrants doing the 21-mile journey are up by 42 per cent on the same duration in 2015. An analysis by The Times, using comparable modelling as Border Force, predicts that 50,000 individuals will cross the Channel in little 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 explanations for his behaviour. One is that he is misguiding himself. He really believes numbers will come down as soon as the procedures he has taken start to work.

If Starmer still thinks that his policies - throwing hundreds of millions at the French authorities, improving intelligence and using improved law enforcement powers - will reduce the numbers, that truly is the victory of hope over experience. The other possibility is that he is already starting poorly 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 approach.

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

He boasted that 'practically 30,000 individuals' had actually been eliminated from the UK by this Government. Sounds excellent. But in fact this figure refers to all types of migrants who have no right to be in our country. 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 choose a statistical sleight of hand?

The other instance of the Government not being entirely directly was the Home Office's claim previously this week that there have actually been more migrants this year due to the fact that of balmy weather condition. 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 just 2,765 arrivals, about 1,000 less than last month. In gentle June 2024 there were 20 'red days', though just 3,007 migrants were taped crossing the Channel.

The most possible description is that last May and June the Government's plan to send illegal migrants to Rwanda had finally cleared consistent judicial blockage. Some, at least, were prevented from crossing the Channel for worry of being loaded off to the main African nation.

The Rwanda scheme was far from best - it was costly, and liable to legal challenge because the nation has an authoritarian government - but a minimum of it had some possibility of discouraging migrants. The inbound Labour Government threw away its only plausible ways of curbing the boats.

Great for Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who in a speech tomorrow will undertake to resurrect a strategy strikingly comparable to the Rwandan one.

Starmer now has nothing powerful in his locker. Literally nothing. He can give further millions to the French government however 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 view migrant boats setting off for Dover.

The truth is that the French will never strain themselves since every migrant who leaves their shores is one less migrant for them to stress over. It is naive to imagine that they are ever going to be zealous on our behalf.

STEPHEN GLOVER: Keir Starmer is a soft guy who can not comprehend the true wicked Britain is facing

Nor will Sir Keir's idea of improving intelligence and police be decisive. As for Labour's reported objective to tinker with Article 8 of the Human Rights Act so regarding prevent bogus asylum claims, that is welcome, but even if it ends up being law it is unlikely to have much result on total numbers.

Are the PM and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper starting to worry as they understand they do not have a single policy most likely to satisfy their promise of the gangs'? If they aren't desperate, they jolly well should be.

Three weeks earlier, Sir Keir was embarrassed after he had actually applauded talks over Rwanda-style 'return centers' only minutes before his Albanian counterpart, standing a few feet away, eliminated any cooperation.

Maybe the Government will persuade 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 individuals will question why Sir Keir cancelled an arrangement that he is at least partly attempting to restore.

I have actually no specific wish to toss Starmer a lifeline but, as I've suggested before, there's one possible path out of the hole he has dug for himself - though it would take enormous determination and guts 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 comparable to those on the Isle of Man that housed alien internees throughout the War. Build hundreds of huts - rather than setting up less durable camping tents, as ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe has actually proposed.

Recruit medical professionals and officials to evaluate claims quicker than takes place at present - and then return most migrants to where they came from. The expense of establishing such a camp would be a fraction of the ₤ 4.3 billion invested last year on housing migrants and asylum seekers.

Can anybody inform me why not? Few migrants would elegant kicking their heels for months in a camp, nevertheless gentle, so it would be a marvellous deterrent. Cross the Channel, and you will be our guest - on a possibly windy island instead of in a four-star hotel.

Granted, in order to fend off vexatious legal obstacles we 'd probably need to derogate from the European Court of Human Rights, which would be a step too far for our mindful Prime Minister.

But he doesn't have a better idea. In reality, he hasn't got any concepts at all that are accountable to stem the growing numbers of individuals streaming across the English Channel.

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

RwandaAngela RaynerLabourWes Streeting