Labour’s soft touch on illegal immigration is driving small boats crisis – Britain needs a proper deterrent

Boats blether

WITH grim predictability, 2025 begins with yet another “stop the boats” idea which avoids the real problem.

This one involves slapping “Interim Serious Crime Prevention Orders” on suspected traffickers, aiming to curtail their activities before they are charged.

Fine. But it’s more fiddling while Rome is burning.

These criminals thrive on this deadly trade but they are not its cause.

That is a liberal regime so attractive that tens of thousands risk their lives to land illegally on our beaches knowing they are near-certain never to be flown back out.

This Government rejects deterrents on principle and axed the only one we had, Rwanda, before its launch.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s desperate search for alternatives is the result.

But this won’t be solved without making the crossings pointless.

The proof is self-evident:

Illegal arrivals last year sharply up on 2023, with a rapid increase under Labour.

Bang average

LONDON’S New Year firework spectacular was the traditional display of Sadiq Khan’s arrogance, egomania and political tribalism.

This event is meant to showcase London and Britain.

Instead it appeared to celebrate — in this order — Khan, Labour, and a harmonious rainbow city of the Mayor’s fevered imagination.

In real life, as is increasingly common in his lawless capital, gang thugs spent New Year’s Eve roaming the West End armed with machetes.

Khan’s extravaganza began with giant illuminated letters grandly announcing, or perhaps warning, that it was ­presented by the Mayor of London.

His musical choices then mocked the Tories, right before New Labour’s limp anthem Things Can Only Get Better.

Which might have had more impact if anything HAD actually got better in the six months his party has had to ensure it.

As a Labour propagandist, newly-knighted Khan has found his calling.

As Mayor of arguably the world’s greatest city he remains a ridiculous lightweight.

Sir Sadiq is like his fireworks. A knight to forget.

Bumpy ride

IT won’t have been Keir Starmer’s decision to jump a three-hour queue to put his kids on a holiday toboggan ride.

But why was he placed in that position, triggering boos from angry Brits?

Of course a PM, for security reasons, cannot queue for hours on end.

Police in Madeira will have advised him how to proceed.

But why was no one alive to the ill feeling it was bound to trigger?

And if Labour think this row is confected, what if Rishi Sunak had done it?

Imagine the pious lectures they would then have delivered on the entitlement of the rich Tory ruling class.