Dumping Asylum Seekers On An Island Will Not Solve The Migrant Crisis - ID Cards Can

About a year from now there may well be a new government faced with a series of intractable problems – stagflation, the continuing damage caused by Brexit, and the strategic challenges posed by Russia and China.

- SEAN O'GRADY

However, there is no issue more emotive and more apparently insoluble than migration and, in particular, the flow of desperate people making the dangerous journey in small boats across the English Channel. Today, more may arrive.

They are risking their lives; there have been tragedies; and there will no doubt be worse tragedies to come. The fact that the government are having to resort to more and more bizarre schemes – the ridiculous overcrowded barge off the coast of Dorset, and a new scheme to send people to the virtually uninhabited volcanic islet of Ascension, 1,000 miles from land – merely demonstrates the paucity of realistic, legally sound, practical options.

One of the few things that all involved do agree on is that the UK should try to “stop the boats”. It’s an ugly slogan, for sure, and so are the attitudes of some on the right, and the dehumanising talk of “illegals” and “invaders”; but it’s actually something that represents a rare consensus. The problem is, obviously, how to do it. Or, to pitch it a little further into the future, how would Labour do it?

It is not entirely clear. Stephen Kinnock tells us that the infamous barge wouldn’t be decommissioned by an incoming Labour administration, or at least not immediately. They would end the Rwanda plan, which is more of a symbolic move than anything, given that it can’t process more than a few thousand refugees in a year. They’d crack down on the criminal gangs, just like the government is attempting to. They’d also try and get a returns agreement with the EU – with no sign that Brussels or Paris will be receptive.