Returning migrants to France is the most humane option

Last week the government awarded a £13.8 million contract to operate a new ferry service between Ramsgate and Northern France in the event of a no-deal Brexit – the money going to a company which, as yet, seems to possess no ferries. But that is a minor misuse of public money compared with the costs that the government will impose upon itself if it fails to tackle that other embryonic cross-Channel ferry service – the one being operated by Border Force and RNLI in conjunction with a bunch of thugs with a flotilla of rubber dinghies.

Fresh back from his safari holiday, Sajid Javid today has a chance to respond robustly to the people-traffickers who have so-far brought a trickle of migrants across the Channel, emulating the much bigger human trade across the Mediterranean which has cost thousands of lives over the past few years. He could order the Border Force to intercept the boats, pick up their human cargoes and return them to Northern France, whence they came.