'A complete mess' - Why British ministers can't seem to solve the small boats crisis

The former home secretary Priti Patel had a whiteboard behind her ministerial desk on which she had written a list of her priorities. For much of her time in office the top three issues were: deal with small boats, cut crime, protect national security. When she left the cabinet in September, Patel was unable to point to much progress on priority No 1, and the situation she bequeathed Suella Braverman has disintegrated into chaos.

- Amelia Gentleman

Within the already beleaguered department, morale has plummeted further. "It's a complete mess," a Home Office source said. "It feels very depressing because we've applied massive resources to thinking about it, talking to the French, launching the Rwanda scheme, trying to set up new accommodation structures. None of it has worked." Civil servants say there is now an unworkable tension between how Conservative ministers want Home Office staff to respond to the issue of small boats crossing the Channel, and how officials believe it should be handled.

Refugees have undertaken dangerous journeys across the Channel for decades, but since lockdown disrupted lorry and train traffic between France and Britain, the shift to crossing in unseaworthy boats has made a largely hidden phenomenon very hard to ignore.

The stark rise in numbers of people coming by boat, from almost zero in 2018 to nearly 40,000 this year, should be seen against this shift away from people arriving (usually unnoticed and uncounted) by lorry.

The optics of the boat arrivals are politically problematic.