Rowing back: Even Sunak is admitting that his migration policy is unworkable
My last two articles have been focused exclusively on the government's so-called 'weeks' strategy: or, red meat policies to fill the void during recess and designed to pad out the government's agenda before it returns in September.
The problem for the government was that with both - ‘Small Boats Week’ and ‘NHS Week’ [let alone the barely spoken about ‘Energy Week’ at the beginning of recess and ‘Education Week’ over the past few days] - neither were ever likely to succeed in their ultimate goals, and so writing about both served more as affirmation to what most expected to happen before they’d even made any announcements.
In that sense then, the government didn't fail and actually did rather well, and both so-called 'weeks' delivered exactly as most people expected them to.
Indeed, only this government could exceed expectations by succeeding in delivering failure.
Small Boats Week, in particular, saw Sunak out of the country and Suella Braverman far, far removed and away from the media's gaze - apparently of her own volition - on a glamping trip at an undisclosed location somewhere in the South East.
The only ministers operating out of the Home Office left to really speak about the government's plans were Robert Jenrick and Sarah Dines, and both - evidently - fell apart under basic scrutiny. In Jenrick’s case, he appeared across the media and then sauntered off to Turkey to try and sign a deal with the country designed to replace what we previously had as members of the EU [in the form of Frontex].
It’s all rather odd - especially in the case of Jenrick who was once upon a time viewed as somewhat of a 'Sunak stooge' emplaced in the Home Office as Braverman’s minder to essentially shadow, keep an eye on and “moderate” Suella Braverman so that she didn't screw everything up.
As we bore witness, not even Robert Jenrick could prevent that.