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There was no plan for the small boats

It’s difficult to see why they would stop coming

On all fronts, the Labour Party is finding the easy nostrums of opposition colliding with the hard realities of government. Nowhere is this more evident than in dealing with the Channel boat crossings.
In opposition, Labour derided everything the Conservatives did to try to halt the traffic. Once in office, they would “target the gangs”, achieve new deals with France and other European countries, end the use of hotels to house would-be asylum seekers and deport more who fail to qualify for refugee status.
Although we are just four months into the new government’s tenure, none of these have remotely been achieved. Indeed, the crossings have risen, the backlog will only be tackled by giving refugee status to people who are effectively economic migrants and more hotel rooms are being requisitioned.
Just as his predecessor promised to “Stop the Boats”, Sir Keir is now making it his “personal mission” to dismantle the trafficking gangs. The smugglers are to be treated like terrorists, more border officers are to be recruited and the Prime Minister will urge other countries to treat the crossing like a security crisis when he attends a summit in Hungary this week.Sir Keir says that “the world needs to wake up to the necessity of this challenge” as though this is something he has only discovered since entering No 10. In Hungary he will find his fellow leaders fully apprised of the problems, with many well aware that the only way to stop this traffic is to deter asylum seekers from making the trip in the first place.
Yet the one policy that the Tories had promulgated in an effort to deter migrants, the plan to send them to Rwanda, was scuppered by Sir Keir with nothing put in its place. 
Putting people smugglers on a par with terrorists will not make them go away. Only a collapse in their market will do that. Most of the traffickers operate on the continent and those caught here already face stiff sentences. Would a heavier or swifter jail term make a difference?
Since Labour has removed any deterrent and deportations are almost non-existent, it is hard to see why people willing to risk their lives by cramming on to small dinghies would stop coming. The advent of winter will see the numbers fall and no doubt will be hailed by the Government as proof of success. But without deterrence the traffic will start up again in the spring.

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