ANALYSIS: The Prime Minister came to power with no idea how to stop the boats, and the people smugglers are taking full advantage.
This graph proves Keir Starmer is clueless (Image: Express / Getty)
Keir Starmer is a comically tragic figure, and one I almost feel sorry for. He’s a man who came to power truly believing in the power of the state to fix problems, someone who thought the myriad problems facing Britain were all because of those incompetent and semi-corrupt Tories. Now, just one year in power, plenty of his closest advisers are having to face up to the very real possibility that that was not the case, and that the state is fundamentally broken.
The Prime Minister himself is still in denial. I understand why – if he accepted that the civil service, the justice system he used to lead at the CPS, parliament, quangos, and the 20th-century international order were all broken beyond repair, he’d suffer an existential breakdown. For Sir Keir, denial is the only way to keep sane. Migration is the single greatest example of all of this. Labour is yet to accept that the promises they made during last year’s general election will never materialise, because they cannot psychologically face up to the real solutions.
Just look at the numbers. This year’s small boat migrant crossings are beginning to make Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson look like hard-line border enforcers.
2022 was the highest year so far for crossings since the crisis began. By July 31 that year, 16,434 migrants had come into Britain on small boats.
By July 31 this year, the number surpassed 25,000. The date that number was hit in 2022 was August 28.
There’s another crucial fact that the chart doesn’t show – while the number of illegal migrants entering Britain is up 52% this year, the number of illegal migrants entering the EU is down significantly.
According to Frontex figures, illegal migration into the EU has fallen 20% in 2025.
So this is not merely a problem that Britain is facing as a percentage of a Europe-wide illegal migration crisis. This is a result of Britain now being seen as the softest touch country for illegal migrants on the continent.
This shocking graph proves just how inept Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper really are (Image: Express)
His policy of returning one migrant to France for every 20-or-so that arrive will be no more effective than the Tories’ doomed Rwanda scheme. It’s a complete drop in the ocean that removes no incentives for risking your life to enter Britain.
Why would it? When 19 out of every 20 illegal migrants who arrive here will be given a bed and board in a cosy four-star hotel, £50 pocket money a week, free health and dental care, and can start working for food delivery companies with no repercussions.
Oh, and if you happen to sexually assault a woman or girl you’ll likely be let off by a judge on the grounds you ‘don’t understand our cultural expectations’.
A third fact is just as stark – Keir Starmer has utterly failed on his one single policy of ‘smashing the gangs’.
The Prime Minister believed, with his holier-than-thou CPS prosecutor hat on, that he could introduce a couple of new laws, lock people smugglers up behind bars, and end the cross-Channel trade in human lives.
On July 25 I published new findings from Tory Robert Jenrick, who revealed that prosecutions of individuals facilitating small boat crossings fell a whopping 60% during Labour’s first year in power.
Just 153 people were prosecuted for aiding illegal entry into Britain, a huge fall from the record high seen under Robert Jenrick’s tenure as immigration minister.
Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper are failing on every level, and every piece of data we have proves it.
They can no longer blame the Tories. This is their mess that the next government will have to clean up, and every day that voters see small boats arriving the demand for more radical resets will be.
Keir Starmer will not abandon his love of foreign courts, foreign institutions, or belief that the French are friends on this issue.
And that’s why he’s doomed to fail.
