Sir Keir Starmer is badly in need of a small boats plan after scrapping Rwanda scheme

Keir’s adrift

HAVING senselessly scrapped the Rwanda scheme, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is badly in need of a small boats plan.

Italy’s right wing government has slashed illegal crossings from North Africa by handing hundreds of millions to Tunisia and Libya to stop migrants leaving.

Labour wants to do the same by chucking massive sums at countries like Vietnam and Kurdistan.

We hope it works. But Britain’s problem is not quite the same as Italy’s.

Illegal migrants arriving here are leaving from France — one of the world’s richest and safest countries.

And unlike those coming from Libya, Channel-crossers don’t face the deterrent of being returned to massive detention camps.

We have already handed France £500million to curb the flow, with precious little result.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is now aiming to make the US the latest major nation to — you guessed it — establish a Rwanda-style scheme.

But Sir Keir — who exaggerates the significance of the arrest of a single supplier of small boats even as the number of illegal migrants crossing this year tops 32,000 — has scuppered that for good.

What’s next?

Drag Net

WHY on earth did the UK send a whopping 470 delegates to the pointless festival of hot air that is Cop29?

Is it because, in Net Zero, Labour has found the perfect socialist pet project to spend our cash on?

Ed Miliband knows the National Grid can only be made carbon-free through massive Government intervention and by spending hundreds of billions.

That’s why he wants to lap up the empty glory of Cop29’s echo chamber of green delusion.

But it will be hard-working taxpayers — as so often — who will fund this vanity.

Net Zero zealotry threatens to throw Britain over an economic cliff — and could prove Labour’s undoing.

Aggroculture

IN the year 2000 a Labour Prime Minister with a massive majority almost came unstuck when he took on the farmers.

Amid large-scale blockades over the cost of fuel, Tony Blair and his Chancellor Gordon Brown backed down and froze duty.

Ahead of Tuesday’s planned farmers’ protest, our new PM has a similar headache caused by Rachel Reeves’ tax-grabbing Budget.

Nearly a quarter of a century ago, the fuel campaigners were led by unknown, eccentric farmer Andrew Spence.

This time the farmers have the massively popular Sun columnist Jeremy Clarkson on board.

Can Labour afford to ignore them?