Let's assume Sir Keir Starmer wants to win the next election. Let's likewise presume he has no desire to be replaced as Prime Minister in the next year or so by Wes Streeting or Angela Rayner or anybody else.

He's a politician, after all, and politicians delight in power - Starmer more than the majority of, I would believe. I likewise suggest that he's at least averagely smart, and should have the ability to weigh up the opportunities of any policy succeeding.

After the struggles, compromises and humiliations associated with attaining high workplace, Starmer has no intention of throwing all of it away. Why, then, does he reveal every sign of doing so?

On the single concern that might matter most to a bulk of voters, he is speeding towards certain catastrophe, while denying himself any prospect of an escape path. I mean the boats discovering the Channel.

Numbers of migrants doing the 21-mile journey are up by 42 percent on the same duration in 2015. An analysis by The Times, using similar modelling as Border Force, forecasts that 50,000 individuals will cross the Channel in small boats in 2025. That would be an annual record - and a stonking fiasco for Sir Keir.

Peering into his mind, I reckon there are 2 main possible explanations for his behaviour. One is that he is deluding himself. He truly thinks numbers will come down when the procedures he has taken start to work.

If Starmer still believes that his policies - throwing hundreds of millions at the French authorities, enhancing intelligence and using enhanced law enforcement powers - will decrease the numbers, that actually is the victory of hope over experience. The other possibility is that he is already starting dimly to understand that his stratagems will not bear much, if any, fruit. So he and the Government have actually decided to pull the wool over our eyes. A deadly approach.

There have been two such examples in recent days. Having stated in an online post on Monday that he felt 'angry' about the numbers crossing the Channel (how does he think the rest people feel !?) the PM made a slippery claim.

Sir Keir Starmer now has nothing formidable in his locker, Stephen Glover composes

Only 2,240 small-boat migrants were sent out home in the 12 months to March, 3 per cent less than in the previous year

He boasted that 'nearly 30,000 people' had actually been eliminated from the UK by this Government. Sounds good. But in truth this figure describes all kinds of migrants who have no right to be in our nation. Only 2,240 small-boat migrants were sent out home in the 12 months to March, 3 per cent fewer than in the previous year.

A lie? Good God no! We mustn't implicate Labour prime ministers, far less Sir Keir Starmer KCB, PC, KC, MP, of telling purposeful fibs. Shall we settle for a statistical sleight of hand?

The other circumstances of the Government not being totally directly was the Office's claim earlier this week that there have actually been more migrants this year due to the fact that of balmy weather condition. These are called 'red days', when the sea is calm.

But an analysis by my associate David Barrett in yesterday's Mail shows that in temperate May in 2015 there were 21 'red days' but just 2,765 arrivals, about 1,000 less than last month. In gentle June 2024 there were 20 'red days', though just 3,007 migrants were taped crossing the Channel.

The most probable explanation is that last May and June the Government's strategy to send out illegal migrants to Rwanda had finally cleared consistent judicial obstruction. Some, at least, were hindered from crossing the Channel for fear of being packed off to the central African nation.

The Rwanda plan was far from ideal - it was expensive, and accountable to legal difficulty since the nation has an authoritarian government - but a minimum of it had some possibility of discouraging migrants. The incoming Labour Government discarded its only possible means of suppressing the boats.

Good for Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who in a speech tomorrow will carry out to reanimate a plan noticeably similar to the Rwandan one.

Starmer now has absolutely nothing formidable in his locker. Literally absolutely nothing. He can offer additional millions to the French federal government however it won't make much, if any, difference. French police will still loll around on beaches, thinking of the sand castles they made as children, as they view migrant boats setting off for Dover.

The fact is that the French will never ever strain themselves due to the fact that every migrant who leaves their shores is one less migrant for them to fret about. It is ignorant to think of that they are ever going to be zealous on our behalf.

STEPHEN GLOVER: Keir Starmer is a soft guy who can not understand the true wicked Britain is facing

Nor will Sir Keir's concept of improving intelligence and law enforcement be definitive. When it comes to Labour's reported objective to tinker with Article 8 of the Human Rights Act so as to preclude bogus asylum claims, that is welcome, however even if it becomes law it is not likely to have much impact on overall numbers.

Are the PM and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper starting to worry as they realise they do not have a single policy likely to satisfy their promise of 'smashing the gangs'? If they aren't desperate, they jolly well must be.

Three weeks ago, Sir Keir was embarrassed after he had actually praised talks over Rwanda-style 'return hubs' only minutes before his Albanian equivalent, standing a few feet away, ruled out any cooperation.

Maybe the Government will encourage the Kosovans or the North Macedonians to establish some sort of scheme. But if it does, it will take months, if not years, and individuals will question why Sir Keir cancelled an arrangement that he is at least partly attempting to revive.

I have actually no specific desire to toss Starmer a lifeline but, as I've suggested before, there's one possible path out of the hole he has dug for himself - though it would take huge decision and courage for him to take it.

There are lots of uninhabited British islands off our coast and additional afield. Pick one of them. Create a camp comparable to those on the Isle of Man that housed alien internees during the War. Build numerous huts - instead of putting up less strong tents, as ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe has actually proposed.

Recruit medical professionals and authorities to assess claims more quickly than occurs at present - and then return most migrants to where they originated from. The cost of setting up such a camp would be a portion of the ₤ 4.3 billion invested in 2015 on housing migrants and asylum candidates.

Can anyone inform me why not? Few migrants would elegant kicking their heels for months in a camp, however humane, so it would be a wonderful deterrent. Cross the Channel, and you will be our visitor - on a possibly windy island instead of in a four-star hotel.

Granted, in order to stave off vexatious legal obstacles we 'd most likely have to derogate from the European Court of Human Rights, which would be an action too far for our mindful Prime Minister.

But he does not have a much better concept. In fact, he hasn't got any concepts at all that are liable to stem the growing numbers of people streaming across the English Channel.

Things can only become worse - and as they do Labour will sink ever lower in public esteem. Does Sir Keir Starmer actually desire to be the signatory of his own political death warrant?

RwandaAngela RaynerLabourWes Streeting