Given it’s set to be a balmy 18 degrees today, like many Brits Boris is heading for the Kent seaside. There he will announce the long-floated plans to begin processing illegal channel migrants in Rwanda. Priti Patel has also flown out to the country to mark the announcement. Although it’s been noticed the President himself is actually 7,000 miles away in Jamaica…

According to last night’s embargoed press release, the announcement comes just weeks before the government expects illegal crossings to resume hitting over 1,000 a day. The PM is set to champion the move as “taking back control of illegal immigration” and that “Our compassion may be infinite, but our capacity to help people is not.”

The decision shouldn’t come as a surprise to any keen followers of the news – apart from maybe Tom Newton Dunn who sparked a diplomatic row when wrongly reporting plans to process migrants in Albania whilst misgendering their foreign minister. Another person definitely caught unawares will have been Home Office minister Richard Harrington; nine days ago on Iain Dale’s LBC show he was asked by a member of the public about the plans, responding:

RH: What is that? A rumour?

ID: It’s more than a rumour, according to the papers today, I saw it in The Times today, that is what is going to be announced in the next few days

RH: Well if it’s happening in the Home Office on the same corridor that I’m in they haven’t told me about it. I mean I’m having difficulty enough getting them from Ukraine to our country, there’s no possibility of sending them to Rwanda!

Good to see joined-up government in action…