We need a grown-up conversation about why migrants are crossing the Channel – not more incendiary rhetoric

Getting tougher on refugees and migrants won’t solve the ‘small boat’ crisis, says Salma Shah. But understanding why they risk their lives to get to UK shores might

Migrants make their way up the beach after arriving on a small boat at Dungeness in Kent (PA)

In the good old days of immigration debate, the only thing one had to worry about was the numbers. The infamous net migration target, where the ambition to reach tens of thousands of migrants was never hit and after years of painful attempts to reach it, it was scrapped.

The ending of freedom of movement, it was hoped, would to some extent end the increasingly toxic debate around immigration. We no longer had cause to criticise the EU and its porous borders which so riled the hard right; we could now control exactly who came into the country. But with so little to complain about, where would all that toxic energy go?

Almost on cue, the populists it seems have found another “threat” to the border in the form of “small boats” or, as I have always seen them, floating coffins. Desperate people on the French coast have decided to risk life and limb to see if they can make a go of it in Britain.