Hardly anyone of good sense in his own court – let alone sceptics or opponents –believe that his initial “smash the gangs” pledge to see off the small boats influx in the Channel – i.e. a patchwork mix of deals with France, Germany and Poland to block the routes of inflatables (which he thinks will defeat the ingenuity of traffickers) and promises about more Interpol activity (which has yielded a big fat nothing) – is anything close to an answer.
This is where focus should have started: in so many ways, the Government’s headaches come from the mis-sequencing of its priorities after taking office and belated attempts to catch up with public opinion.
Beneath the surface of this is a “raw numbers problem”, as one senior minister involved puts it, namely that processing delays are now the single biggest cause of pressure in the system. At the same time, claims have risen to record levels.
This has long been exactly the kind of system Starmer, who often acted as a lawyer to protect refugee rights, knows well. It has been the clearing house for difficult decisions about claims and who should be returned. It also created a “grey zone” in which any party in government could say they were dealing with the rise in claims as fast as possible, distracting from the fact that a substantial proportion of those in appeals did not result in returns, even for those without formal leave to remain in the UK.
Yvette Cooper, the flinty Home Secretary, now appears to be tasked with the job of “Iron Lady” on the matter, striking a less ambiguous tone than Starmer on the need to speed all of this up and using a new raft of “independent adjudicators” to hit a 24-week deadline for those who are either reliant on asylum accommodation or have previous criminal convictions.
Past lives do seem to haunt the Prime Minister often, not least because in opposition he led the charge against the Tories’ Rwanda plan for off-shore processing centres for asylum seekers. It was a non-starter for many reasons, but the idea of processing closer to the countries most asylum-seekers come from remains a likely policy for big countries with limited public patience towards the existing system. Indeed, Germany has just said it will explicitly resist its own version of the Rwanda proposal.
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A weekend of protests, counter-demonstrations and clashes across the country will have reminded the Prime Minister that this brew of genuine concern, resentment and a dollop of unpleasant racism will be corrosive to his aim of bringing a calmer and more stable mood to the UK.
Many in his own ranks anticipate the next election as a “Starmer v Farage” fight and worry he may already be on the losing side. The contest now under way however is really “Starmer v Starmer”, the human rights barrister versus the man who wants to show he can solve problems with blunt force and see off a Labour rout. There’s not much doubt about which side of of the Prime Minister is winning that fight: the Mark Darcy character from Bridget Jones.
Anne McElvoy is executive editor at Politico and host of the Politics at Sam and Anne’s podcast
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