Suella Braverman's Turkey deal won't stop the boats

It hardly takes a genius to work out that whoever is in charge of the government’s media grid over the summer parliamentary recess has designated this as ‘illegals week’. Not only has Home Office floated the eye-catching idea of building a holding centre on Ascension Island, but the Bibby Stockholm has finally seen its first residents march up the gang plank. Yet another new crackdown on employers hiring illegal immigrant staff has been heralded by the Prime Minister, while Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson has suggested that migrants who turn their noses up at being housed on barges should ‘f*** off back to France’. And it’s only Wednesday.

After half a year of failing to stop the boats, Sunak’s administration is determined at least to be seen to ‘strain every sinew’. It hopes that voters will conclude that it is at least trying.

Most of these postures – for they are hardly solid policies – have attracted gratifyingly large amounts of pushback from the hated metropolitan left.