Let's presume Sir Keir Starmer wants to win the next election. Let's likewise presume he has no desire to be changed as Prime Minister in the next year or two by Wes Streeting or Angela Rayner or anyone else.

He's a political leader, after all, and politicians relish power - Starmer more than many, I would believe. I also recommend that he's at least averagely intelligent, and should be able to weigh up the chances of any policy succeeding.

After the struggles, compromises and humiliations included in attaining high office, Starmer has no intent of throwing it all away. Why, then, does he reveal every indication of doing so?

On the single issue that might matter most to a bulk of voters, he is speeding towards certain disaster, while rejecting himself any possibility of an escape route. I suggest the boats stumbling upon the Channel.

Numbers of migrants doing the 21-mile journey are up by 42 percent on the very same duration in 2015. An analysis by The Times, utilizing comparable modelling as Border Force, forecasts that 50,000 individuals will cross the Channel in small boats in 2025. That would be a yearly record - and a stonking ordeal for Sir Keir.

Peering into his mind, I reckon there are 2 main possible descriptions for his behaviour. One is that he is misguiding himself. He really believes numbers will boil down once the procedures he has taken start to work.

If Starmer still thinks that his policies - throwing numerous millions at the French authorities, enhancing intelligence and utilizing boosted police powers - will lower the numbers, that actually is the victory of hope over experience. The other possibility is that he is currently starting poorly to understand that his stratagems won't bear much, if any, fruit. So he and the Government have actually decided to pull the wool over our eyes. A fatal approach.

There have actually been two such examples in recent days. Having said in an online post on Monday that he felt 'upset' about the numbers crossing the Channel (how does he think 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 home in the 12 months to March, 3 percent fewer than in the previous year

He boasted that 'practically 30,000 individuals' had actually been removed from the UK by this Government. Sounds excellent. But in truth this figure describes all kinds of migrants who have no right to be in our country. Only 2,240 small-boat migrants were sent home in the 12 months to March, 3 percent fewer than in the previous year.

A lie? Good God no! We mustn't accuse Labour prime ministers, far less Sir Keir Starmer KCB, PC, KC, MP, of telling intentional fibs. Shall we opt for a statistical deception?

The other circumstances of the Government not being completely directly was the Home Office's claim previously today that there have been more migrants this year because of balmy weather condition. These are called 'red days', when the sea is calm.

But an analysis by my colleague David Barrett in the other day's Mail reveals that in temperate May last year there were 21 'red days' however only 2,765 arrivals, about 1,000 fewer than last month. In gentle June 2024 there were 20 'red days', though only 3,007 migrants were tape-recorded crossing the Channel.

The most possible description is that last May and June the Government's plan to send out prohibited migrants to Rwanda had actually lastly cleared relentless judicial blockage. Some, a minimum of, were hindered from crossing the Channel for fear of being packed off to the main African nation.

The Rwanda plan was far from ideal - it was costly, and accountable to legal challenge due to the fact that the country has an authoritarian government - but at least it had some possibility of hindering migrants. The incoming Labour Government discarded its only plausible means of curbing the boats.

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

Starmer now has absolutely nothing formidable in his locker. Literally nothing. He can give more millions to the French federal government but it won't make much, if any, difference. French police will still loll around on beaches, thinking of the sand castles they made as children, as they watch migrant boats setting off for Dover.

The reality is that the French will never strain themselves since every migrant who leaves their coasts is one less migrant for them to stress over. It is naive to envision that they are ever going to be zealous on our behalf.

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

Nor will Sir Keir's concept of improving intelligence and police be definitive. When it comes to Labour's reported intention to play with Article 8 of the Human Rights Act so as to prevent fake asylum claims, that is welcome, but even if it ends up being law it is unlikely to have much result on total numbers.

Are the PM and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper starting to stress as they realise they do not have a single policy most likely to fulfil their promise of 'smashing the gangs'? If they aren't desperate, they jolly well ought to be.

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

Maybe the Government will encourage the Kosovans or the North Macedonians to set up some sort of plan. 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 revive.

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

There are lots of unoccupied British islands off our coast and more afield. Pick one of them. Create a camp comparable to those on the Isle of Man that housed alien internees during the War. Build hundreds of huts - rather than setting up less tough camping tents, as ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe has actually proposed.

Recruit medical professionals and authorities to evaluate claims more quickly than happens at present - and then return most migrants to where they came from. The cost of setting up such a camp would be a fraction of the ₤ 4.3 billion invested last year on housing migrants and asylum hunters.

Can anybody tell 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 visitor - on a perhaps windy island instead of in a four-star hotel.

Granted, in order to stave off vexatious legal obstacles we 'd probably need to derogate from the European Court of Human Rights, which would be a step too far for our careful Prime Minister.

But he does not have a better idea. In reality, he hasn't got any concepts at all that are accountable to stem the growing varieties of people streaming throughout the English Channel.

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

RwandaAngela RaynerLabourWes Streeting