The home secretary, Priti Patel, has announced that gangs smuggling illegal migrants across the Channel will face a maximum life sentence. To which one can only respond with a measure of incredulity and exasperation. This is just yet more tough talk from the government to conceal the absence of effective action.
Indeed, the Home Office has acknowledged that very few will be given such a sentence. But it hopes that increasing the maximum from 14 years to life will raise the current average prison sentence of three years to a much higher term.
Such a threat, however, is unlikely to deter the migrant trade because it doesn’t address the incentives that drive it. Last year, a record 8,410 migrants were intercepted crossing the Channel in