Can Keir Starmer stop the boats?

Keir Starmer is not a man for dividing lines. Whether on public spending, relations with Europe or benefits claimants, the Labour leader has sought to ensure that the gap between the opposition and government remains as narrow as possible, lest he alienate floating voters. So it is notable that he has chosen to make the Rwanda migrant scheme an exception.

At a speech this morning in Kent, Starmer said a Labour government would scrap the plan to send failed asylum seekers to Kigali, which he labelled  "a gimmick, not a solution". That he did so while standing next to Natalie Elphicke is god tier chutzpah, but never mind. Instead, he said the party would use the money to set up an "elite" Border Security Command task force to target people smugglers and prevent small boat crossings.

As our chief political correspondent Rachel Burford reports, Starmer went on to explain how this force would “bring together hundreds of specialist investigators”, including from services such as the National Crime Agency and the Crown Prosecution Service. He also committed to a security pact signed with European partners to help “smash” criminal gangs, which charge tens of thousands of pounds to traffic people into Britain.

When questioned, Starmer declined to set a deadline for bringing the number of small boat crossing to zero, which so far this year has seen more than 8,500 migrants arrive, a rise of more than one-third on the same period in 2023.

Instead, Starmer pointed to perhaps the central flaw of the Rwanda scheme, which is that it is highly improbable to act as an effective deterrent (something the home office's permanent secretary accepts). First, because Kigali can only take less than one per cent of the arrivals on small boats. But more to the point, even on a calm day the English Channel is an exceptionally dangerous place. People prepared to risk their lives to cross it are unlikely to be deterred by a small chance of being sent on an RAF flight.

The Labour leader feels he is on safe ground to scrap the Rwanda policy because the public generally doesn't think it'll work either. For example, in a YouGov poll earlier this year which asked, if it could be enacted, how effective the scheme would be at stopping migrants arriving via small boats, 53 per cent of respodents said either 'not effective at all' or 'not very effective'. 

Starmer has thus far enjoyed levels of good fortune that have evaded previous opposition leaders. Partygate and the mini-Budget have hobbled the Tories, the SNP is scandal-hit, while inflation and interest rates look set to fall just in time for a Labour government. But migration is not going away, either as a political issue or real-life phenomenon.

First, there is the unspoken reality that once migrants from particular countries reach the UK and apply for asylum, they are virtually guaranteed to be successful. That is the case for 99 per cent of people from Afghanistan and Syria, and 98 per cent for those from Sudan. Hence the cross-party desire to prevent crossings in the first place.

But second, migration is not only caused by war. Climate change will render previously habitable parts of the planet either too hot for human life, or too flooded, or too dry. A warmer world is already driving the mass movement of people. Which makes the whole thing a much larger conversation than whether or when the UK gets flights off the ground to Rwanda.

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