PM’s deal with France was blown out of the water when ten vessels arrived

Choppy waters

ON most days so far this year, zero migrants have landed illegally from small boats.

Sadly, that is where the good news ends.

Because any optimism that Rishi Sunak’s latest deal with France might be working was blown out of the water when ten vessels arrived on Sunday.

The 442 aboard were lured in part by a brazen ad campaign by Albanian gangs on TikTok with cut-price fares, less a ­discount for bringing a friend.

Most are virtually guaranteed new lives here. They know it.

The traffickers do too and mock Britain’s helplessness.

“They deport 50 but we will send 500,” says one ad.

“No one will return you,” says another. Who can argue?

Home Office officials predict a record-shattering 80,000 may arrive illegally in 2023:

The population of a mid-sized town in just one year, by just one method.

All must be fed and housed from the public purse.

That would be a disaster for a PM who has promised to “stop the boats”.

But it will surely be plain before long that tweaked agreements with France and social media crackdowns won’t work.

To deport thousands and build a real deterrent will need laws overriding the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Left will fight that to the death.

Do the Tories have the stomach for it?

Deep in debt

WE hope the striking unions take a good look at the obscene sums the Government had to borrow in December.

The Treasury “overdrew” by £27.4billion to keep Britain afloat.

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Much of it was interest on our already mountainous debt.

Billions more funded the handouts keeping energy bills down.

Are public sector unions arguing we must borrow MORE to fund their inflation-plus demands?

Do they not recall the Government bailing their members out and preserving their jobs during Covid — and still cushioning them from the economic fallout from Putin’s war?

These dire figures are an unwelcome wake-up call too for those demanding immediate tax cuts.

We would love to see them — but Rishi Sunak must steady the economy first.

That’s the priority.

Trans insanity

A CONVICTED double rapist is sent to a women’s prison in Scotland.

This is fine and normal to trans activists and the SNP.

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Adam Graham attacked his victims as a muscular man.

He now self-identifies as a female, Isla Bryson, who the court heard used “her penis” to rape.

Bryson is yet to have surgery and reportedly has no gender-swap certificate either.

She spent last night in a women’s jail.

And if you think THAT’S insane, the SNP’s new trans law would make self-ID much easier and women-only ­spaces even LESS safe.

The Tories are right to block it UK-wide.