Yvette Cooper has given up trying to stop the boats

The only way to stop the small boats coming across the Channel would be for Emmanuel Macron to allow the British to return their occupants to France. The home secretary boasted today that 16,000 people have been removed since she took over, but this is some way below the 45,000 a year that were removed under the last Labour government. Even so, I thought it was a mistake for Richard Hermer, the attorney general, to tell the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe that he wouldn’t even consider standing up to the ECHR: “I’d like to be very clear: the new UK government will never withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, or refuse to comply with judgments of the court, or requests for interim measures given in respect of the UK.” Of course Britain should support the Convention, but it has to reserve the right to set it aside in exceptional circumstances. Keir Starmer, Lord Hermer’s fellow barrister, has described the small boats as a “national security” threat. By taking away even the possibility that the British government might adopt a robust attitude towards rulings by the Strasbourg court, Hermer confirms that he and Cooper have simply given up trying to stop the boats.