Shameless Tory leadership hopefuls are using refugees in the English Channel to further their careers

Theresa May has unintentionally fired the starting pistol on the race for No 10, with all the unpredictable posturing that entails

Sajid Javid’s use of the migration “major incident” (it isn’t one) to further his party leadership campaign is growing embarrassing – both for its blatancy and for its collapse into farce.

First, the number of predominantly Iranian refugees turning up on the south coast on dinghies is far too paltry to qualify for the panicky “major incident” label. Anyone would think that some amphibious assault on the scale of Hitler’s Operation Sea Lion was being unleashed on the shores of Kent. It is not.

The despairing individuals struggling to make their way across the world’s busiest shipping lanes are just that: desperate refugees. Around half have their applications for asylum approved though the appropriate procedures. It was therefore factually inaccurate, as well as distasteful and legally questionable, for Mr Javid to question their status as refugees, and prejudicing their cases by calling them “illegal” migrants. They are not “illegal” until a court has determined they are.

The home secretary, who has many quasi-judicial responsibilities, should really know better. His remarks were plainly aimed at the constituency he needs to win over to secure his eventual entrée to 10 Downing Street. It is a little too obvious.

Second, we have the odd spectacle of two supposed statesmen of the May government – and undeclared leadership contenders – squabbling about who should pay for a Royal Navy ship that will be diverted to Channel patrols at a disproportionate cost of £20,000 a day. The defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, having made all the right noises about the armed forces standing by ready to help, is now trying to send the bill for this help to the Home Office. Mr Javid seems disinclined to pay up. In the meantime, the cutters being diverted from the Mediterranean to the English Channel will make it that bit more likely that migrants will be able to successfully cross from Libya to Greece, Italy and Malta – and eventually make their way to Calais. The net effect will in any case be minimal.

For what it’s worth yet another leadership contender, the foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, is backing Mr Javid. Mr Hunt, a Brexiteer with all the zeal of the convert, has launched his own vision of post-Brexit Britain as the Singapore of Europe – in Singapore.

It is all getting a little out of hand. These young men in a hurry are making fools of themselves.

What none of them, with their variegated Euroscepticism, care to admit is that, post-Brexit, dealing with migration will become more difficult. Presently, under the Dublin Regulation, a member state such as the UK is entitled to return asylum seekers to the nation where they first claimed asylum. After Brexit that option may well not be available. Nor can the UK necessarily count on the continued cooperation of the French under the Le Touquet treaty, and other countries in Europe, after Brexit.

The non-binding UK-EU “political declaration” gives few clues about the future of migration policy because the UK-EU trade and security treaty hasn’t been negotiated, let alone signed. It is true that many asylum seekers and other migrants fail to register in the first place, but the situation may become even more chaotic if the UK exits the EU’s collective decision-making machinery.

It is all another sorry example of the law of unintended consequences. When the prime minister was campaigning to win her vote of confidence she promised (though not in a legally binding way) to stand down before the next general election. She thereby fired the starting pistol on a Tory leadership contest, with all the unpredictable activity that entails, up to and including the present misuse of the Royal Navy and RAF chasing after random Iranians in boats.

For as long as ambition burns in the hearts of Mr Javid, Mr Hunt, Mr Williamson, Penny Mordaunt, Michael Gove, Jo Johnson, Boris Johnson, Esther McVey, Andrea Leadsom, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Amber Rudd, Dominic Raab, Tom Tugendhat, Liz Truss and Johnny Mercer – to name a few – there will be much, much more of this posturing.