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Let's assume Sir Keir Starmer desires to win the next election. Let's also assume he has no desire to be changed as Prime Minister in the next year approximately by Wes Streeting or Angela Rayner or anyone else.

He's a politician, after all, and politicians relish power - Starmer more than most, I would think. I also suggest that he's at least averagely intelligent, and ought to be able to weigh up the possibilities of any policy prospering.

After the battles, compromises and embarrassments associated with attaining high office, Starmer has no objective of throwing everything away. Why, then, does he show every sign of doing so?

On the single problem that might matter most to a bulk of voters, he is hurtling towards particular disaster, while rejecting himself any prospect of an escape path. I mean the boats coming across the Channel.

Numbers of migrants doing the 21-mile journey are up by 42 percent on the same period in 2015. An analysis by The Times, using similar modelling as Border Force, predicts that 50,000 people will cross the Channel in little boats in 2025. That would be an annual record - and a stonking ordeal for Sir Keir.

Peering into his mind, I reckon there are two primary possible explanations for his behaviour. One is that he is misguiding himself. He truly believes numbers will come down when the procedures he has taken start to work.

If Starmer still believes that his policies - tossing hundreds of millions at the French authorities, enhancing intelligence and using enhanced law enforcement powers - will decrease the numbers, that really is the triumph of hope over experience. The other possibility is that he is currently beginning dimly to understand that his stratagems won't bear much, if any, fruit. So he and the Government have decided to pull the wool over our eyes. A deadly approach.

There have actually been two such examples in current days. Having said in an online post on Monday that he felt 'mad' about the numbers crossing the Channel (how does he believe the rest of us feel !?) the PM made a slippery claim.

Sir Keir Starmer now has absolutely nothing formidable in his locker, Stephen Glover writes

Only 2,240 small-boat migrants were sent out home in the 12 months to March, 3 per cent fewer than in the previous year

He boasted that 'practically 30,000 people' had actually been gotten rid of from the UK by this Government. Sounds great. But in truth this figure refers to all types of migrants who have no right to be in our nation. Only 2,240 small-boat migrants were sent home in the 12 months to March, 3 per cent fewer than in the previous year.

A lie? Good God no! We should not accuse Labour prime ministers, far less Sir Keir Starmer KCB, PC, KC, MP, of informing intentional fibs. Shall we choose a statistical sleight of hand?

The other instance of the Government not being totally directly was the Home Office's claim previously this week that there have been more migrants this year due to the fact that of pleasant weather condition. These are called 'red days', when the sea is calm.

But an analysis by my coworker David Barrett in yesterday's Mail reveals that in temperate May in 2015 there were 21 'red days' but only 2,765 arrivals, about 1,000 less than last month. In mild June 2024 there were 20 'red days', though only 3,007 migrants were tape-recorded crossing the Channel.

The most likely explanation is that last May and June the Government's strategy to send out illegal migrants to Rwanda had finally cleared persistent judicial obstruction. Some, a minimum of, were discouraged from crossing the Channel for fear of being packed off to the main African country.

The Rwanda plan was far from perfect - it was costly, and accountable to legal obstacle because the nation has an authoritarian federal government - but a minimum of it had some possibility of deterring migrants. The incoming Labour Government tossed away its only possible methods of suppressing the boats.

Good for Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who in a speech tomorrow will carry out to reanimate a plan noticeably comparable to the Rwandan one.

Starmer now has nothing formidable in his locker. Literally absolutely nothing. He can provide additional millions to the French federal government but it will not make much, if any, distinction. French authorities will still loll around on beaches, thinking of the sand castles they made as children, as they see migrant boats setting off for Dover.

The truth is that the French will never strain themselves since every who leaves their shores is one less migrant for them to fret about. It is naive to think of that they are ever going to be zealous on our behalf.

STEPHEN GLOVER: Keir Starmer is a soft man who can not comprehend the true evil Britain is dealing with

Nor will Sir Keir's concept of enhancing intelligence and law enforcement be decisive. When it comes to Labour's reported intention to tinker with Article 8 of the Human Rights Act so as to prevent phony asylum claims, that is welcome, but even if it becomes law it is not likely to have much result on total numbers.

Are the PM and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper beginning to panic as they realise they don't have a single policy most likely to satisfy their promise of 'smashing the gangs'? If they aren't desperate, they jolly well should be.

Three weeks ago, Sir Keir was embarrassed after he had applauded talks over Rwanda-style 'return hubs' only minutes before his Albanian equivalent, standing a couple of feet away, eliminated any cooperation.

Maybe the Government will convince the Kosovans or the North Macedonians to set up some sort of scheme. But if it does, it will take months, if not years, and individuals will wonder why Sir Keir cancelled a plan that he is at least partly trying to restore.

I have actually no particular wish to toss Starmer a lifeline however, as I have actually suggested before, there's one possible course out of the hole he has actually dug for himself - though it would take huge decision and nerve for him to take it.

There are numerous unoccupied British islands off our coast and more afield. Pick among them. Create a camp comparable to those on the Isle of Man that housed alien internees during the War. Build numerous huts - instead of putting up less sturdy camping tents, as ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe has proposed.

Recruit doctors and authorities to evaluate claims quicker than happens at present - and then return most migrants to where they came from. The expense of establishing such a camp would be a fraction of the ₤ 4.3 billion invested in 2015 on housing migrants and asylum candidates.

Can anybody inform me why not? Few migrants would elegant kicking their heels for months in a camp, however gentle, so it would be a marvellous deterrent. Cross the Channel, and you will be our guest - on a potentially windy island instead of in a four-star hotel.

Granted, in order to ward off vexatious legal obstacles we 'd most likely need to derogate from the European Court of Human Rights, which would be an action too far for our careful Prime Minister.

But he does not have a better concept. In fact, he hasn't got any ideas at all that are liable to stem the growing numbers of people streaming throughout the English Channel.

Things can only get even worse - and as they do Labour will sink ever lower in public esteem. Does Sir Keir Starmer truly want to be the signatory of his own political death warrant?

RwandaAngela RaynerLabourWes Streeting