Voices: Sunak and Braverman are in battle over the small boats crisis – only one can win

After winning plaudits from his MPs and Tory-supporting newspapers for his crackdown on the Channel migrants crisis, Rishi Sunak was given a sober and sombre reminder of the intractable problem today.

Some migrants are reported to have died, while others were rescued, when a small boat ran into trouble off the Kent coast.

The prime minister will doubtless argue that the latest tragedy, just over a year after at least 27 migrants died in French waters, reinforce the need to “stop the boats”. But it is also a reminder that, even in freezing temperatures, desperate people – including some genuine asylum-seekers – are ready to risk their lives to get to UK shores and are unlikely to be deterred from the latest headline-grabbing measures pumped out by the government.

Indeed, Sunak and Suella Braverman, his home secretary, competed for such headlines in the Sunday newspapers in an apparent spat over who would announce yesterday’s crackdown.

There was only going to be one winner. For the incoming prime minister, the Channel crossings were a “do something” issue, if he wanted to win back lost 2019 Tory voters and the confidence of his MPs. Red wall MPs, fighting for their political lives, say the small boats are the biggest issue on the doorstep; they have been pressing Sunak to “get a grip”.

So he took personal charge of the issue and has devoted more time to it in his first seven weeks in power than any other except the economy. His decision to front the Commons announcement was hardly a ringing endorsement of his home secretary. Nor are the clear signs that this package was drafted in Downing Street rather than the Home Office.

Sunak’s other aim was to tackle the perception he is “invisible” (according to some Tory MPs) or “weak” (Keir Starmer’s jibe, which seems to have got under the PM’s skin). Sunak aides insist his polite demeanour should not be mistaken for weakness: he wants to be seen as a polite radical.

At first glance, his package on asylum sounded tough and was even hailed by some over-excited Tories as a game-changer that could turn the political tide. But on closer inspection, it looks eerily familiar: legislation ensuring that illegal immigrants do not remain in UK was also promised in Priti Patel’s Immigration and Nationality Act, which took effect earlier this year. The then-home secretary told the Commons: “Anyone who arrives illegally will be deemed inadmissible and either returned to the country they arrived from or a safe third country.”

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Sunak now tells us: “Early next year we will introduce new legislation to make unambiguously clear that if you enter the UK illegally you should not be able to remain here. Instead, you will be detained and swiftly returned either to your home country or to a safe country where your claim for asylum will be considered.”

The United Nations suggests the move would breach the UK’s “legal obligations”. That is why some Tories want to defy or leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). According to Dominic Cummings, the legal advice when he was in Number 10 was that the small boats crisis could not be fully solved without pulling out.

Braverman wants to opt out of the convention, but Sunak dodged this crucial question yesterday; he and some other ministers are not yet convinced. The PM will come under more Tory pressure on the issue in the Commons today, when Boris Johnson supports a backbench Bill to allow the government to press ahead with its controversial plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda by disregarding any ECHR ruling on it.

Although the ECHR is separate from the EU, the Brexit deal and Good Friday Agreement include commitments to it. So leaving would undermine Sunak’s hopes of improving relations with the EU and resolving the dispute over the Northern Ireland protocol. If he achieves these goals, I suspect Sunak might be tempted to include a pledge to leave the ECHR in the Tories’ 2024 election manifesto to draw a deliberate dividing line with Labour on immigration.

“Doing something” himself, with a media blitz in today’s Tory-supporting newspapers – “exclusive interviews” in both the Daily Mail andThe Sun and an article in The Daily Telegraph – will give Sunak a short-term boost.

But it means he will not be able to resort to the politicians’ favourite trick of blaming someone else, such as Braverman, if he fails to deliver his pledge to clear the backlog of asylum claims by the end of 2023, as the election approaches. It would be his failure.

Perhaps Sunak hopes to get some credit from the public and his MPs for at least trying. That won’t happen if pictures of the small boats still feature in our TV news bulletins. Today’s horrific news suggests they probably will.