It is eight weeks since Andy Burnham, speaking about Labour’s approach to the Channel small-boats crisis, maintained that ‘the plan is working’.
Yet if there was precious little to back up his claims then, evidence is even thinner on the ground now. More than 1,000 illegal migrants have landed on our shores in the space of three days. On Wednesday alone, there were 781 arrivals – the highest number in a single day this year – in ten boats.
The cost to British taxpayers continues to be eye-watering. With Home Office figures showing that each asylum claim costs £18,700, Wednesday’s arrivals alone
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