The Channel crossing of migrants will be part of how Labour is judged

The bottom of the overcrowded inflatable boat split and collapsed, throwing people into the sea.

This, I am told, is what happened early on Tuesday morning in the Channel, with devastating consequences: at least twelve dead, including children and a pregnant woman.

People crossing the Channel in small boats is an issue that is at once human, moral, practical, political and diplomatic.

It is a crisis on the south coast of the UK that governments of different political colours cannot stop.

There currently appears to be a frightening trend with deadly consequences.

More and more people are travelling in inferior quality boats with weak engines and are prepared to sail in dangerous conditions.

The chance of tragedy increases.

It seems that this could be a terrible unintended consequence of efforts to destroy the complex, international, organized criminal networks that underlie these border crossings.

An important part of the strategy to tackle this are the so-called ‘upstream solutions’.

In doing so, the government and the National Crime Agency attempted to break the smuggling gangs’ business model.

The key to this is disrupting or ideally destroying the supply chains they depend on, particularly the supply of boats and engines.

It seems that there are fewer and fewer boats and fewer engines attempting the crossing, while there are more and more people in each boat, often not having enough power to cross the world’s busiest shipping lane.

Then there is diplomacy, in other words the relationship between the United Kingdom and France.

Some in London are privately reflecting after the recent political unrest in France They are now dealing with a dysfunctional government in Paris.

The French government, in turn, has proposed a migration treaty between the United Kingdom and the European Union, blaming Brexit for worsening the problems.

Such a treaty seems highly unlikely.

The new Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has described this latest incident as “deeply tragic” and reiterated her commitment to dismantling the smuggling gangs.

Her predecessor, James Cleverly, now her shadow and a candidate for the Conservative leadership, also said it was a tragedy, stressing the need for a deterrent.

The Conservatives wanted to send migrants to Rwanda, but it never happened. Labour has now scrapped the policy.

In the coming weeks, the government will appoint a border security commander to tackle what is set to be one of the most important issues of the 2020s.

Whether this government succeeds in tackling and ultimately stopping the thousands of people trying to cross the Channel in small boats will likely play a major role in how they are judged in the years to come.

It will be extremely difficult to resolve this and there is a good chance that there will be more days when people die in the waters between France and England.