7 April 2025, 11:53

By Nicola Kelly

Last week Keir Starmer held yet another summit for world leaders, this time focused on ‘organised immigration crime’.

The gathering came at a time of particular scrutiny. Just days earlier, figures emerged showing that more than 6,000 people have crossed the Channel by small boat this year: a new record high.

Decisive action was required, the prime minister warned the forty leaders gathered before him. Hard-working people and vulnerable migrants were being exploited. Though he didn't say it, Starmer, too, was being made to look incompetent. The Labour government had, after all, swept to power on the promise of change. Yet here were overcrowded dinghies arriving on Britain’s shores in numbers never seen before.

I have spent much of the last five years on the frontline of the small boats crisis researching my book, ‘Anywhere But Here’, and I’ve seen where governments consistently go wrong. Labour’s fixation on enforcement is one such strategy- a misplaced, misguided focus which has not, and will not, work.

In........

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