Will Braverman turn on Sunak over the Channel crisis?

Finally the Tory government appears to have realised that its serial mishandling of the Channel boats issue is the top cause of the voter disaffection that is killing its re-election prospects.

Rishi Sunak’s administration now understands that the position he has set out so far – saying there is no ‘silver bullet’ to solve the dinghy problem, and that progress will require careful and patient work across many fronts – will not suffice, if well-briefed pieces in the weekend newspapers are anything to go on .

As Nick Timothy – co-author of a radical new pamphlet on the issue that recommends withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights, blanket refusal of asylum applications from illegal arrivals, standard detention and offshore processing – notes in today’s Daily Telegraph:

‘The time for incrementalism is over.’

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick – a long-time Sunak ally and confidant – has floated the idea of new arrangements that would bar Albanians from making asylum claims and set in place a rapid returns policy with Albanian authorities.

But even if such a deal could be arrived at and worked perfectly, ensuring the deportation of every Albanian claimant, the number of dinghy arrivals from other countries would still exceed the 28,500 who came in 2021, which was in itself a record year.