The government needs a much more radical rethink than signing a migration deal with France

Editorial: There is so much that could be done with the money wasted on the government’s performative projects

Suella Braverman and her colleagues seem to enjoy passing laws that can’t be enforced and signing treaties that won’t change much (Getty)

Suella Braverman isn’t someone with whom many will feel much sympathy, seeming, as she does, to be possessed of an unusual callousness apparently driven by an almost pathologically deluded political ambition. It is, nonetheless, painful to see her signing a deal with the French interior minister that will do little if anything to ameliorate the refugee crisis.

It is, in its own small, offensive way, a symbol of how political dogma is placed before even the interests of the taxpayer – let alone effectiveness. Devoting £63m to a policy that didn’t work when it had £54m spent on it doesn’t seem like the brightest idea, even by the standards of the overheated mind of Ms Braverman.

It is certainly an egregious waste of money – though it is probably the only category of UK public expenditure enjoying such a boost, albeit to be sent direct to the French government. There are no performance targets, no guarantees of anything, and British Border Force officials or police officers will be mere observers in French control rooms.