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’.
On reducing small boat crossings, Rishi Sunak is missing the wood for the trees
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.
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