Our new Home Secretary's record on crime should be in the welcome pack for small boat arrivals - Carole Malone

It’s been hilarious listening to Labour MPs and ministers at the weekend bigging Mahmood up and saying what a brilliant job she’s done as Justice Minister and that she’s reversed the position of us having no prison cells.

Well, if she has (and I don’t believe it), it's only because she’s released 26,000 dangerous prisoners back onto the streets and she’s set in motion moves to send fewer people to jail and give shorter sentences to those who are.

If you set thousands of criminals free and you don’t jail those who really need to go to prison, then of course you’ll have some vacant prison cells.

But it also means you’re going to have lawless streets – which is exactly what we have.

Turfing violent felons back onto the streets who’ve served less than a third of their sentence was never the solution to overcrowded prisons.

The only solution was to build more prisons, and so far, that isn’t happening.

So, if Mahmood hasn’t been able to do anything as Justice Minister, she hasn’t got a hope in hell of making any difference to the thousands flooding here on small boats every month.

This weekend, 1100 arrived in 17 dinghies. That’s 11,000 new homes to be found on top of the 30,000 that have already come this year.

Says Mahmood: “Thanks to our deal with France, people coming in small boats can be detained and removed to France.”

And if you believe that. You’ll believe anything. That deal was announced in July, and so far, not one person has been sent back.

And, just like Cooper did, Mahmood’s already started banging on about stopping the gangs.

When is it going to sink in – no one’s got a hope of stopping the gangs until we leave the ECHR and change the Human Rights Act.

Mahmood says: “Protecting our borders will be my first priority. We have reset our relationship with the EU and we’ll agree on new measures to protect our borders, hitting the people smugglers hard.”

And saying stupid stuff like that in her first few days in office is what will eventually do for her.

Mahmood, like Cooper, is avoiding talking about the only thing that will stop the boats – a tough deterrent like Rwanda. How stupid must this Government feel now, having junked a plan that countries all over Europe are falling over themselves to take up.

And our esteemed Prime Minister threw Rwanda in the bin in a fit of pique on his first day in office for no other reason than it had been a Tory idea.

Even Nigel Farage has been in talks with Rwanda and has said both he and they are open to resurrecting a deal if Reform gets into power.

The fact Mahmood needs to take on board pretty sharpish is that nothing this government has done so far – and nothing it will do in the future - will change anything if there isn’t a tough deterrent to stop people coming.

And currently, we have the opposite of a deterrent. People from all over sub-Saharan Africa are risking life and limb, travelling through God knows how many countries to get here because they know once they do, they’ll be put up in four-star hotels or new build private houses, which is actually happening. They’ll be fed, clothed, given free healthcare (often ahead of the British people) and free education.

They’ll never have to lift a finger in the way of work, and then when they’re settled here, they can bring all their relatives, and they won’t have to work (or speak English) either.

Why wouldn’t you come?

But it’s got to stop.

And if Mahmood doesn’t get that she’ll spend all her time doing what Yvette Cooper did – tinkering around the edges and making no difference whatsoever to the numbers coming.

Yes, it’s a fantastic idea to get migrants out of hotels and put them in detention centres and disused army camps. But anyone who thinks that’s going to happen any time soon – think again.

I’ve been listening to military chiefs talking about these old barracks, saying many are in no fit state to be used and that much time and money is going to have to be spent on them.

Those same chiefs are also furious that military personnel could end up staying in barracks, nowhere near as comfortable as those being made ready for asylum seekers. They’re saying this Government has put off renovating existing barracks and that asylum seekers could end up getting priority over people prepared to fight and die for this country.

So, no one’s happy.

Shabana Mahmood has inherited the very worst job in Government, and it won’t be long before she’s banging her head off the Downing Street walls because we have a PM and an Attorney General – Lord Hermer – who are both in thrall to the ECHR and who think anyone who wants to come here should be able to at the British taxpayer’s expense.

It doesn’t matter how tough Mahmood is, it doesn’t matter how determined she is to get to grips with the boats crisis, the bottom line is she’s working for a bloke who doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing and is too spineless to take the tough decisions needed to stop the boats.

I hope I’m wrong - because I want Mahmood to succeed. But I suspect she’ll end up having her reputation trashed in much the same way Yvette Cooper has.

This Government hasn’t got anything remotely resembling a deterrent to stop the boats, and until it does, whoever is Home Secretary is on a hiding to nothing!