Aussie lesson

ONLY a serious deterrent will solve the small boats crisis. Other suggested ­“solutions” just waste time and energy.

The Government, with superhuman optimism, still holds out hope of signing a returns agreement with the EU. Why?

1

Brussels has zero inclination to help Brexit Britain.

And the Dublin Agreement we had in the EU usually saw us take in more than we transferred out.

A few hundred migrants a year were sent back . . . less than now land at Dover in an afternoon.

Meanwhile handing France mind-boggling sums to police their beaches has failed. ­Macron laughs at us.

So Labour’s “ideas” — of greater co-operation with Paris and Brussels and speeding up asylum claims — are just waffle, a smokescreen concealing a complete lack of thought or will.

As for the party’s faith in “safe routes” to Britain, we back those too for genuine refugees.

But how will they prevent the chancers who DON’T qualify from sailing over just as they do now?

Physically turning them back in the world’s busiest shipping lane risks yet more drownings. The Navy rightly won’t wear that.

The answer is a deterrent. Ask ex-Aussie foreign minister Alexander Downer, who effectively ended his country’s problem by shipping ALL illegal arrivals offshore . . . as Rishi Sunak intends with Rwanda.

The instant the smugglers cannot guarantee customers the new life they paid for, their racket is over. “You don’t have to do it long,” says Mr Downer.

If our Supreme Court, or the ECHR, rules against Rwanda on a technicality the PM must rework it, not give up.

Deterrence may anger the vacuous, hand-wringing, open-borders Left.

But it is the only remaining solution likely to work.

Sick economy

COVID may be mostly a grim memory but its economic legacy is truly dire.

A record 2.5million are now on long-term sickness benefits.

Many are genuine cases. Some even wrecked their physical and mental health working from home.

Others are on epic NHS waiting lists caused by the pandemic.

But too many are shirkers who got addicted to lives of leisure on handouts during Covid. ­

Doctors sign them off far too readily.

So unemployment is rising despite 1.02million vacancies.

No wonder bosses demand more immigration to fill them.

Sicknote Britain must end.

Nick of time

AN apple a day keeps the doctor away, says the ancient health proverb.

These days an Apple can save your life by dialling 999, transmitting your location and texting the missus, as Daniel Reid found after a nightmare crash.

Read his miraculous story.