Let's presume Sir Keir Starmer wishes to win the next election. Let's likewise assume he has no desire to be replaced as Prime Minister in the next year or so by Wes Streeting or Angela Rayner or anybody else.

He's a politician, after all, and politicians relish power - Starmer more than many, I would think. I likewise suggest that he's at least averagely smart, and ought to have the ability to weigh up the opportunities of any policy prospering.

After the battles, compromises and humiliations associated with accomplishing high office, Starmer has no intent of throwing it all away. Why, then, does he show every sign of doing so?

On the single problem that might matter most to a majority of voters, he is hurtling towards certain catastrophe, while rejecting himself any prospect of an escape route. I suggest the boats stumbling upon the Channel.

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

Peering into his mind, I reckon there are 2 primary possible descriptions for his behaviour. One is that he is deluding himself. He truly thinks numbers will boil down as soon as the procedures he has taken start to work.

If Starmer still believes that his policies - tossing hundreds of millions at the French authorities, enhancing intelligence and utilizing boosted law enforcement powers - will reduce the numbers, that actually is the accomplishment of hope over experience. The other possibility is that he is currently beginning dimly to realise that his stratagems won't bear much, if any, fruit. So he and the Government have decided to pull the wool over our eyes. A deadly method.

There have been two such examples in current days. Having said in an online post on Monday that he felt 'upset' about the numbers crossing the Channel (how does he think 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 home in the 12 months to March, 3 per cent fewer than in the previous year

He boasted that 'practically 30,000 people' had been removed from the UK by this Government. Sounds excellent. But in truth this figure describes all kinds of migrants who have no right to be in our nation. Only 2,240 small-boat migrants were sent out home in the 12 months to March, 3 per cent less than in the previous year.

A lie? Good God no! We mustn't implicate Labour prime ministers, far less Sir Keir Starmer KCB, PC, KC, MP, of informing intentional fibs. Shall we go for a statistical sleight of hand?

The other instance of the Government not being completely straight was the Home Office's claim previously today that there have 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 yesterday's Mail reveals that in temperate May last year there were 21 'red days' however only 2,765 arrivals, about 1,000 less than last month. In gentle June 2024 there were 20 'red days', though only 3,007 migrants were taped crossing the Channel.

The most probable description is that last May and June the Government's plan to send out unlawful migrants to Rwanda had finally cleared consistent judicial obstruction. Some, a minimum of, were hindered from crossing the Channel for fear of being packed off to the main African country.

The Rwanda scheme was far from best - it was expensive, and accountable to legal obstacle because the country has an authoritarian government - but a minimum of it had some prospect of hindering migrants. The inbound Labour Government got rid of its only possible means of curbing the boats.

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

Starmer now has absolutely nothing powerful in his locker. Literally absolutely nothing. He can offer additional millions to the French government but it will not make much, if any, difference. French authorities will still loll around on beaches, thinking about the sand castles they made as children, as they see migrant boats setting off for Dover.

The fact is that the French will never strain themselves since every migrant who leaves their coasts 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 male who can not comprehend the real wicked Britain is facing

Nor will Sir Keir's concept of enhancing intelligence and law enforcement be definitive. As for Labour's reported objective to play with Article 8 of the Human Rights Act so regarding prevent fake asylum claims, that is welcome, however even if it becomes law it is unlikely to have much impact on overall numbers.

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

Three weeks earlier, Sir Keir was humiliated after he had actually praised talks over Rwanda-style 'return centers' only minutes before his Albanian counterpart, standing a couple of feet away, dismissed 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 revive.

I've no particular desire to throw Starmer a lifeline but, as I've recommended before, there's one possible course out of the hole he has actually dug for himself - though it would take enormous decision and nerve for him to take it.

There are many uninhabited British islands off our coast and more afield. Pick one of them. Create a camp comparable to those on the Isle of Man that housed alien internees during the War. Build numerous huts - rather than setting up less sturdy camping tents, as ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe has actually proposed.

Recruit doctors and authorities to examine claims faster than occurs at present - and after that return most migrants to where they came from. The expense of establishing such a camp would be a fraction of the ₤ 4.3 billion spent last year on housing migrants and asylum candidates.

Can anyone inform me why not? Few migrants would expensive 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 perhaps windy island rather than in a four-star hotel.

Granted, in order to fend off vexatious legal difficulties 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 Minister.

But he does not have a much better concept. In truth, he hasn't got any ideas at all that are liable 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 truly desire to be the signatory of his own political death warrant?

RwandaAngela RaynerLabourWes Streeting