It was Keir Starmer himself who strode forward in May to a lectern in Downing Street to declare that it was, in fact, he who could honour the famous Brexit slogan ‘Take back control.’
The Prime Minister was taking a risk considering his previous policy of ‘smashing the gangs’ smuggling people to Britain has resulted in 50,000 people making their way to the UK by small boat in record time.
Clearly, he wanted to make a stand, but evidence has started to emerge suggesting that the ‘take back control’ pledge might go the same way as his gang-smashing idea.
After deputy Angela Rayner’s sudden departure, Starmer reorganised his Home Office team, jettisoning Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and asylum minister Angela Eagle.
Not that this should really be much of a surprise, the pair had overseen little improvement in the situation amid a summer when migrant hotels once again became a flashpoint for protests and unrest.
Starmer has often presented himself as the ‘adult in the room’ who’d sort out all these silly issues, like housing thousands of asylum seekers in hotels or dinghies flying across the Channel daily, with a bit of sensible CPS-trained talking.
But quickly, he’s realised the situation is a lot more challenging than previously thought.
His latest idea to solve the hotel problem is to try and requisition student housing in addition to the HMOs that are being used as alternative migrant accommodations.
As an inevitable instant angry reaction to the student housing move shows, however, moving the issue from one place to another doesn’t actually solve it.
Really, all he’s doing is lining someone else’s pockets. Instead of a hotel chain benefiting from a Home Office block booking, student halls will be filled to the rafters for an extended period, earning the provider an easy payday.
The situation regarding HMOs is even more dire. As my investigation revealed at the end of last year, shameless grifters have long targeted the government’s need for asylum seeker housing as a cash cow and as much as hotel accommodation is hardly cheap, this solution is not a low-cost alternative.
Then there is the fact that if it is farmed out to HMOs, the government’s control over which is even further reduced.
Illegal working, exploitation and crime were all issues that took place while large groups were kept together in hotels – can you imagine how bad it will be when migrants are filling undesirable housing in small towns?
The only real solution is to speed up decisions.
Hotels, HMOs and halls are only used because Britain takes so long to decide what to do for those claiming asylum in Britain.
Setting up a processing centre in France and conducting full background checks on everyone applying before they set foot in a dinghy would soon stem the flow of people taking awful risks to reach Britain. Especially if you make doing so result in an unconditional rejection.
Combined with an aggressive approach to anyone who facilitates trafficking, including the French government, the need to house anyone in Britain would be reduced.
But don’t place any bets on Starmer taking the initiative to actually do something consequential.