Talk tough and do nothing: The abject failure of Patel’s migrant strategy

It is somehow fitting that during an Olympic Games a department of Her Majesty’s government is busy smashing records.

In the very week that a man ran the 400 metre hurdles at the Tokyo Olympics in a previously unthinkable time of sub-46 seconds, the Home Office presided over the arrival of 482 irregular migrants on the south coast of England in a single day. That easily broke a previous record of 430, set on 19 July or ‘freedom day’. Startled observers of the cross-Channel chaos are now pondering whether the 500 barrier could even be exceeded one day this summer.

That the Norwegian hurdler Karsten Warholm’s record represented astounding success, while the Home Office’s amounts to shocking failure is by the by. Because clearly, it’s the taking part that counts.

In a classic example of displacement activity, Home Secretary Priti Patel was this week away on a fact-finding mission in Greece. She was purportedly picking up new tips about how the administration there has curtailed the flow of small boats full of irregular migrants from Turkey.