FTI Consulting UK Public Affairs Snapshot: One year on from Sunak’s five pledges: Immigration and ‘stopping the boats’

Since last week’s snapshot on cutting NHS waiting lists, the Prime Minister has now acknowledged that the Government has indeed failed to meet its pledge. However, despite the clear evidence, he did not admit the same for his fifth and final pledge: Stopping the boats.

Over the past year, boat crossings have reduced in volume. In 2023, there was a 36% decline in crossings compared to the same period for 2022, largely attributed to a notable reduction in Albanian nationals arriving due to Sunak’s agreement with the Albanian government.

However, while this progress is undeniable, there is still much work to be done for the Prime Minister to meet his fifth pledge. 29,437 people crossed the English Channel in 2023, and the rate of arrivals from countries other than Albania increased by 11%.

The Government’s record in this area has also been fraught with criticism across the political spectrum. When challenged that Channel crossings had only fallen due to poor weather and storms, the Home Secretary, James Cleverly, dismissed this, arguing that the Government had turned the tide on the smugglers. However, as expected, as the weather began to improve, so too did the frequency and volume of boat crossings.

While there must be an inkling from within the Cabinet that Sunak’s flagship pledge is in disarray, Cleverly continued to spend much of January doubling down on the unachievable target of zero crossings. 

Therein lies the problem. The Government should be able to revel in the progress that it has made on such a long-standing issue. Sunak’s deal with Albania and his recovery of the Anglo-French relationship, rooted in his interpersonal skills and willingness to defy certain factions of his own party, have yielded results.

However, this success has had little cut-through with the public, with the Government constrained by an absolutist pledge which is simply unattainable. No country in the world has managed to reduce so-called illegal migration to zero, yet this is now what the public expects.

Of course, intertwined with the pledge to stop the boats is the Government’s Rwanda scheme, inherited – and retained – by Sunak from the Johnson administration.

While the Prime Minister has been presented with several opportunities to scrap it, such as with the dismissal of Suella Braverman in November 2023, he has chosen to double down with the introduction of the Safety of Rwanda Bill to Parliament.

The Bill, seen as intrinsic to stopping crossings in the Channel by providing a strong deterrent, passed its way through the House of Commons and is now under the scrutiny of a sceptical and rebellious House of Lords. It requires any decision-maker, be that the Home Secretary, immigration officers, or the courts, to “conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country”.

However, the Bill has managed to cause further tensions in the Conservative Party and beyond. It has allowed the Government to be painted as illiberal by senior figures on the left of the party and inept by those on the right. As far as the public is concerned, it has only served to remind voters that the Government has not got a grip on this issue.

Worse from the Government’s perspective is the fact that there is still no guarantee that a single asylum seeker will be deported to Rwanda, given the possibility of continued legal challenges. This is despite £240 million having already been spent on the scheme.

As far as this pledge is concerned, Sunak has chartered his course and now he must stay on it for better or worse. However, without extensive revisions to human rights legislation and withdrawal from the European Convention of Human Rights, there will be many more difficulties ahead and it may prove impossible to meet the pledge at all.

Ahead of the upcoming General Election, with immigration remaining a priority for the public, Sunak will have quite the task on his hands to convince voters that he will succeed on an issue where his party has so far fallen short.