Labour must reduce the boats and net migration or face annihilation - Bill Rammell

But some context is needed for the boat crossing figures. The number this year is just 3 per cent of the staggering 1million annual net migration the Tories allowed to run up. But the boat crossings offends many people’s sense of fairness and playing by the rules. That's one reason tackling this is urgent.

Labour never said it could resolve the boat crossings in five months, and no reasonable person would expect that were possible. But by the end of next spring will be a real test of whether Labour is making significant progress in reducing crossings.

Part of the solution is through securing deals with countries upstream to stem the flow of illegal migrants. To those in Reform and on the right of the Tory party who cry foul at this. I say it’s essential. What is your practical alternative?

In the first such deal Britain and Iraq have agreed an unprecedented joint plan to tackle people smuggling gangs responsible for thousands of migrants crossing the channel in small boats.

The deal also ensures failed Iraqi asylum seekers are returned home more swiftly.The deal involves greater intelligence sharing and more joint law enforcement operations, all designed to increase the number of smugglers prosecuted.

The UK will give Iraqi law enforcement money for training in border security. On top of this, the authorities in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (where I lived and worked for 18 months, and I know the scale of the problem there) will get support to help tighten their border security and tackle irregular migration.

The agreement is the first substantive attempt by the Government to fulfil its mission to combat people smuggling at source rather than just trying to stop the boats in the Channel.

And the Iraq deal is designed to be a blueprint for deals with other countries. It also involves a new communications campaign seeking to deter Iraqis coming to the UK by telling real stories about “the risks and realities of travelling to the UK irregularly”.

A new task force from both countries will be set up as well to upgrade Iraq’s biometric border controls, to help identify migrants without documentation. Kier Starmer has described the agreement with Iraq as “a world-first that will help us smash the people smuggling gangs and secure our borders.”

The Government also wants to use Blair era counter terror powers to search people suspected of being involved in people smuggling and give police extra powers to restrict smugglers’ access to the internet and travel while monitoring their financial accounts. This needs urgent progressing.

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But let’s remember boat crossings are a miniscule proportion of the net migration figures. To make big inroads into that we need an uplift in low pay (to make jobs more attractive to British workers) which the Government has already started through raising the minimum wage three times the rate of inflation.

We need benefits reform to compel more people to take jobs. The Government is committed to this. And we need to review and restrict the “eligible for foreign recruits” jobs list, which the Government has commenced.

And we are seeing the first signs of progress with a big increase in returns and deportations, up 30 per cent no less. Net migration is already falling.

But if Labour doesn’t make much more progress by the next election in tackling the boats and reducing net migration to the low hundreds of thousands, it will struggle to be re-elected.