Does Rwanda offer the answer to Britain’s Channel migrant crisis?

Away from the well-merited focus on Ukraine, normal politics carries on in Britain. One has to poke around a bit to find it, but there are several issues, rendered all but invisible, that will weigh heavily on the minds of voters at the next general election. Rather than Russian barbarism in Ukraine, it is these things that will determine Boris Johnson’s fate.

Britain’s broken immigration and asylum system is close to the top of the list. Among Leave voters, it is the second most important political topic, above healthcare and defence and security. Eclipsed only by economic pressures, Boris cannot afford to ignore what is happening in the Channel. Yet still his government is burying its head in the sand: the ‘Channel-hopping’ phenomenon under which predominantly young men gain unlawful entry to the UK by paying people traffickers to ferry them across from France in dinghies is running at record levels.

Already more than 4,500 such entrants have been recorded in the first three months of the year.