Keir Starmer won’t stop the boats

Labour’s new ‘stop the boats’ policy is a risible exercise in deception that will only ever fool the truly gullible.

The centrepiece, announced by Keir Starmer today, is to set up a new ‘Border Security Command’, which will be an elite force empowered to use anti-terror laws to ‘smash the people-trafficking gangs’.

Funding for the new force will come from savings made by scrapping immediately the Tory Rwanda removals policy, which Sir Keir branded a money-wasting gimmick that would never work.

‘That is my message to the smugglers. These shores will become hostile territory for you. We will find you, we will stop you, we will protect your victims,’ he added.

But the security-based approach – busting the gangs through tough and high-profile law enforcement – has been tried before. As long ago as August 2020, the then-Home Secretary Priti Patel unveiled a new ‘Clandestine Channel Threat Commander’ in the shape of dashing former Royal Marine Dan O’Mahoney.