Rishi Sunak needs to do more to stop the boats

Is Rishi Sunak stopping the boats? He’d certainly like us to think so. He spent much of yesterday in Dover parading the news revealed on The Spectator data hub last week that small boats crossing the Channel were down a fifth compared with the same time last year. By the end of May, the Ministry of Defence had detected 7,610 migrants crossing the channel in small boats. In the same months last year it was 9,607. A clear success then.

But is a 20 per cent reduction really job done? Or is Sunak standing on deck with the mission accomplished banner flying before the war is won? For starters the weather has a lot to do with it. Those at his Dover press conference were quick to point to choppy and windy weather. And looking at previous years, at the current rate of arrivals we’re still on course for the second highest year of illegal crossings on record.