Sunak has resorted to relying on rain to stop the boats

There is something curious about even the very modest degree of success the Prime Minister has been able to herald on his key priority of stopping the boats. Every time the wind drops and the sun comes out the numbers crossing surge just as they did during the long hot summer of 2022.

This happened, for example, immediately after Rishi Sunak’s last set-piece outing on the subject in Dover on 5 June. Then he declared that the government’s policies were ‘working’ and were reducing numbers in a way that ‘we haven’t seen before’.

As it turned out, June went on to be the best month of the summer weather-wise and it saw 3,824 irregular migrants crossing – the highest number for any June on record. The 20 per cent fall that Sunak had pointed to at the start of the month was down to about 10 per cent by the time it ended. Then the Channel saw a rainy and blowy July and August and the 20 per cent margin was magically restored. 

September has begun with temperatures rising, winds falling and the sun beating down on southern England. And lo and behold, Saturday saw the biggest single day tally for crossings of the year so far at 872 in 15 boats.

We shall soon see if this patten continues across the coming days, during the forecast mini-heatwave. If it does, then I suggest far less credence be given to all the wheezes and media blitzes unveiled by Sunak on this issue and that his eager lurches into self-congratulation be greeted only with mockery. We shall know that the climate hasn’t changed on Channel crossings, just the weather.

It now seems likely that the only materially useful improvement achieved by Sunak is the returns agreement with Albania, which has been followed by a plummeting of arrivals from the biggest nationality group of last year. Yet even much of that drop-off could be illusory given that these days only an idiot would own up to being Albanian after crossing illegally in a small boat.

Ruses such as using taxpayers’ money to try and buy a clampdown on dinghy embarkations from France or the manufacture of inflatables in Turkey point to a UK administration that is unwilling to face up to its own primary responsibility to stop the boats as Australia did a decade and a half ago. The Rwanda removals policy – the one measure that could create a significant deterrent to the crossings – remains up on bricks in dry dock having suffered two key court defeats. The first came in summer 2022 during a late-night sitting at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and the second followed this year when our own Court of Appeal ruled the scheme unlawful.

In both cases, judgments were based on very liberal interpretations of universal rights described in the European Convention on Human Rights. We await the verdict of the Supreme Court, but should that go in Sunak’s favour ministers are braced for an immediate wave of individual appeals being taken to Strasbourg. And it is just as likely to go against him.

If Rwanda cannot be got underway by early next year then the case for derogating from the European Convention and its supervisory court will have been starkly illustrated. That will have become a necessary measure for any administration genuinely committed to restoring border control. Yet the Tory Reform Group (TRG) has just warned the PM against doing any such thing, arguing it would be a ‘profound mistake’ and would see this nation ranked alongside Russia and Belarus as some kind of rogue state. 

The TRG publicly lists 13 sitting Conservative MPs as patrons – and there are many others that share its take who are not listed. There is a lack of MPs from Labour, the Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid Cymru or the Green party in favour of withdrawal. As such, it follows that a Sunak-led administration would need a giant majority to outgun the combined ranks of the opposition and its own rebels – bigger than the current 60 which he sits on – to enact such a move. That prospect can surely be filed away in a drawer marked ‘not gonna happen’, especially given the timidity of a PM who has never got off the fence on the issue.

A deadly phrase about the Prime Minister cropped up in one of the Sunday broadsheets this weekend: ‘bloodless technocratic leadership’. At a time when so many people sense the country is heading in fundamentally the wrong direction, he pores over data sets seeking clues as to which detailed adjustments could yield tiny incremental improvements. He is missing the wood for the trees.

It does not seem to have occurred to him that the time has come to strike out for a new paradigm. Right now he finds himself reduced to the sad state of the Australian cricket team at Old Trafford: praying for cloudbursts.