After countless speeches, digital campaigns and a dedicated act of parliament, the government’s determination to “stop the boats” carrying migrants across the Channel is hardly in doubt. Public confidence that the job will be done is a different matter. So far, Rishi Sunak has succeeded only in raising hackles while advertising his impotence. He would not be the first Tory leader to fall into that trap. David Cameron famously pledged to cap annual net migration at “tens of thousands”; while the target was never met, it amplified concern about the issue, mostly benefiting campaigners for Brexit.
In pandering to immigration demands from Tory hardliners, Mr Cameron facilitated his downfall. It is probably too late for Mr Sunak to learn from that example, and he shows only determination to dig deeper into the mine of anti-migrant populism in search of campaign fuel. This week Robert Jenrick, a Home Office minister, set out the next stage in the government’s immigration clampdown. While the Illegal Migration Act targets foreign passengers on small boats, disqualifying them from asylum and committing to detain and deport them, the next campaign phase is a second front focusing on people who employ, house or otherwise abet illegal immigrants. As with previous measures, this is largely a matter of making things that were already illegal even more so.
