The Importance of Small Boats in the Immigration System

Host Ailbhe Rea explores how and why dealing with migrants crossing the English Channel has shot to the top of the prime minister’s to-do list — and what he’s actually doing about it.

Pollster Scarlett Maguire outlines the political headache for Sunak, while disgruntled Tory MP Matt Warman explains how this has now become the top issue of concern for his constituents in Boston and Skegness — hundreds of miles from the Kent coast.

Ailbhe also meets an Iranian asylum seeker, Ali, who made that dangerous journey across the Channel himself — and was then left waiting years for a decision on whether he can stay.

And we take Sunak’s pledge on its own terms and ask two very different experts — immigration lawyer Colin Yeo, and former head of the UK Border Force, Tony Smith — whether the prime minister really can stop the boats.

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