Maybe everyone can agree on one thing: if stopping the boats was easy, it would have been done by now. Whether the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, ever deluded herself otherwise, a year of only limited progress in the government’s mission to “smash the gangs” must have brought home to her just how intractable irregular migration is.
The numbers of those crossing the Channel are as high as ever – partly because of the warm weather and calm waters, but also because the criminals who run these people-smuggling businesses are smart and innovative.
