It’s now 40 days since Yvette Cooper announced the launch of Labour’s ‘new Border Security Command’ which was touted during the election as Starmer’s key to ‘smashing the gangs’ and solving small boat crossings. Labour says the entire project relies on having an “exceptional leader” to do all the work:
“Reporting directly to the Home Secretary, the Border Security Commander will provide strategic direction to work across agencies, drawing together the work of the National Crime Agency (NCA), intelligence agencies, police, Immigration Enforcement and Border Force, to better protect our borders and go after the smuggling gangs facilitating small boat crossings.”
The only problem with the commander is – there still isn’t one. After former terror cop Neil Basu snubbed Starmer by refusing the position the government has failed to produce a plan B. The ‘command’ is so far exactly the same as the one set up by the Tories, with no additional officials. Labour has had to externally open up applications for the position as boat crossings tick up to their highest levels under the new government. Good luck finding anyone willing to take that job…
The Office for National Statistics released figures this morning showing that in the year to mid-2023 a gargantuan 1,084,000 people immigrated to England and Wales from outside the UK, while only 462,000 emigrated. The largest annual increase since 1948…
Meanwhile the number of births at 598,000 was the lowest in over two decades. Nigel Farage was, as usual, on the case:
The population of England and Wales rose by nearly 610,000 to 60.9 million last year. That is the biggest increase since records began.
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) July 15, 2024
It has been silence from Tory leadership hopefuls all day, though, after a combative previous week of briefing and counter-briefing. Establishing a credible position on the migration question is seen by many as a key to luring Reform and Labour voters back…
New provisional figures released by the Home Office reveal that the number of migrants arriving in small boats has reached a record high for the first three months of any year. The previous record of 4,548 was set in 2022…
Arrivals are 23% higher so far than last year at 4,644. And to think hacks criticised Sunak for his pledges being too achievable…
At last night’s Next Gen Tories event in a crowded Morpeth Arms Robert Jenrick, still sporting his “Caesar” haircut, set out his stall for the future of the Tories, arguing that housing is the golden ticket – “which I’ve probably done more on, to my cost, than anybody in Parliament“. Jenrick explained that “the polling is terrible among young people” and “there is a fatalistic attitude in our party today“, while his recent trips to Europe and Texas have proved that right-wing parties can do well with young people. He quipped that Sunak said: “If we get flights off the ground to Rwanda, you’ll be on the first one there”…
Jenrick said that the Tories’ failure to execute zonal planning reform in 2021 was “one of the greatest missed opportunities of this parliament… Boris himself would accept that.” As a result, the government’s continued failure to deliver the pledge “locked our country in a cycle of slow growth”. Meanwhile, negative growth is now kiboshing Sunak’s electoral plans…
When a co-conspirator asked Jenrick about Guido’s story on vital leasehold reform, he agreed that Parliament must “consign leasehold to the history books” as a “historic feudal system” with no place in modern Britain – and set an end date in stone. Jenrick and Gove should get together to push through that “unfinished Conservative revolution”…
