Labour just left a huge open goal

And now Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman are going to exploit it

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Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour Party just left a huge open goal ahead of the next election. And it’s now abundantly clear that Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman intend to keep kicking their football into it. The issue? Illegal immigration.

Whatever your views, whatever your politics, the simple fact is that most people in Britain care deeply about what’s unfolding in the Channel.

Believe me. I sit down with voters all the time and I poll them regularly.

If you’re sitting on Twitter nodding along with commentators who tell you voters no longer care about immigration then, to be blunt, you’re following the wrong people.

The small boats is an issue that cuts through in a way few other issues do.

It’s highly emotional. It hangs on notions of threat, belonging, and insecurity. And it feeds what I’ve called the public desire for a narrative of “security” at the next election.

Economic security from a cost-of-living crisis. Physical security from a collapsing National Health Service. And national security from the escalating small boats crisis and a mounting sense of social chaos across the country.

“I thought we were getting control!”, voters say in focus groups. “Wasn’t Brexit supposed to fix this?” they ask. “Who the bloody hell is in charge?”, they fume.