'No nice or easy way of doing it': Labour's small boats dilemma

"There isn't an easy or nice way of doing it."

It's a blunt reality check from a former Home Office minister describing one of the government's most pressing dilemmas - how to crack down on the illegal trade of smuggling people into Britain.

The prime minister, his cabinet colleagues and nearly all their political rivals agree that this trade must end. People from all over the world risk their lives to try and get here - and hundreds of communities are affected when those who make it are sent to live in hotels or other accommodation while their cases are dealt with.

But there's huge disagreement over what should be done.

Labour replaced Rishi Sunak's "stop the boats" slogan with its own three word mantra: "smash the gangs". One of Sir Keir Starmer's first acts was to ditch the Conservatives' plan to send people who arrived in the UK without permission straight to Rwanda.

Conservatives fume that Labour got rid of what might, theoretically, have stopped smugglers and migrants in their tracks. Frankly, we don't even know if the first plane would have left the tarmac, and Conservatives can't be sure that it would have worked as a deterrent – but the government can't be sure that it wouldn't have.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who will be on our show on Sunday morning, has instead concentrated on trying to do deals with other countries to stop the criminals who exploit the distress and ambition of those desperate to come to the UK. This weekend we're with her in Italy as she brokers more cooperation with other governments.

The jargon is to "disrupt at source", to hamper the gangs, and cut the number of people who get into flimsy rubber boats in the cold seas in the hope of making it to the UK.

There's been no shortage of activity. The measures agreed so far range from the UK paying to help train border security forces in Iraq to a new criminal offence being created to prosecute people smugglers in Germany. There have also been deals with Slovakia, Slovenia, and Kurdistan, as well as cash for Sudan, Chad, Vietnam, and Egypt.

She's also focused on speeding up the system that decides what happens to those who make it here and are living in a horrible limbo, and on returning more people back home. For years the backlog of cases has run to the tens of thousands – an unhappy status quo.

So the overall approach is pretty clear: make it harder for people to get here without permission, and sort out what happens to those who do much faster.

But clear is not the same as effective.

Since Labour's been in power the number of people making the crossing in small boats has gone up. More than 20,000 have arrived since July, up from 17,000 in the same period last year. And the government has admitted that the number of hotels being used to house asylum seekers has also risen since the election, to more than 35,000 people as of September.

The government is well aware of the unhappiness this causes to some of the public, seeing migrants "walk on to the coast like they're getting ferries", one insider says. And there is acknowledgement that this hotel housing causes a "major problem with social cohesion", says the same source.

It's not unheard of for Labour MPs and even some now ministers to object publicly to groups of new arrivals, who aren't allowed to work, being put up at the taxpayers' expense in communities without the right support or infrastructure, and without full explanation or support for local people either.

But ending the use of these hotels has become one of the promises Labour made during the election that is proving harder than they suggested to keep.

Cooper's team, though, point to increasing number of failed asylum seekers being returned to their countries, and progress they have made in cutting the backlog of cases stuck in the system.

Neither stopping using hotels nor specifically cutting migration numbers or stopping the boats have made it on to Sir Keir's very public list of "milestones". Never fear, say sources in his operation – it's not a milestone but a "foundation". What on earth does that mean? In short, the government is well aware of how important it is that it gets a grip on illegal immigration and sources suggest the PM himself is spending a lot of time concentrating on it, and that it's on the agenda with every world leader he sees.

But No 10 won't repeat the practice of previous administrations, creating specific targets or setting lofty goals on immigration. Maybe it's trap they won't set for themselves.

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That lack of a visible measure of success, however, leaves the government open to accusations that they are not taking the public's concern seriously enough. If there are targets for health, why not immigration? If there are numbers for kids' education, why not boats?

With Nigel Farage's Reform Party on the march in some polls, Labour's opponents are on the hunt for any sniff of a lack of commitment to making immigration a top concern. The Conservatives fume that Labour gave up the chance of a deterrent that may or may not have prevented cross channel journeys taking place. They cite Australia, where boats were turned around and Belgium, where police have intercepted boats in the water.

One Tory strategist said there has been a "lack of political will" to solve the problem. The economy relies on migration, so gearing up the government machine to confront legal and illegal immigration requires a more fundamental level of honesty about the trade-offs that are needed, they say.

The criticism comes from inside Labour itself, too.

"There's a fear, a lack of courage," one source in the party tells me – with others describing Cooper as cautious. The only way to solve the hideous problem of vulnerable people arriving into the UK in a chaotic manner would be to do something entirely different, some argue, such as opening up more safe routes for people to come to the UK or developing so-called humanitarian visas to help those in danger flee their countries (although that wouldn't necessarily stop others making the dangerous small boats journey).

Sir Keir's leadership does not want to argue that it should be easier for people in desperately poor countries to move to the UK. Yet there are Labour voices who say a more grown up and honest conversation is required. Last year, I spoke to five former home secretaries about how hard it was to manage immigration, and they all felt they'd been hampered by the politics of the issue.

Labour, right now, does not want to pick a bolder deterrent, like the Conservatives' Rwanda plan, or a more radical humanitarian approach. As so often, Sir Keir is picking what seems a pragmatic tack – do reasonable things better, and hope (like hell) that with enough effort, it works.

It is, critics on the right and left say, a muddle in the middle.

As 2025 approaches there is little doubt about the importance or the political emotion that surrounds the issue of illegal immigration. But nothing's obvious about the viability of the government's solutions – or the success or failure of what they are trying to do.

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