This bill is designed not to stop small boats – but to embarrass Labour at the election

The Illegal Migration Bill is second-best for Rishi Sunak after he failed to secure an agreement with Emmanuel Macron, writes John Rentoul

Sunak and Braverman must hope that the legislation becomes bogged down in the House of Lords and then in the courts (EPA)

The most effective moment in Yvette Cooper’s response to the Illegal Migration Bill in the Commons came when she quoted the home secretary saying that the bill meant that irregular arrivals would be detained and returned.

Only she wasn’t quoting this home secretary, or this bill: it was Suella Braverman’s predecessor Priti Patel, and the previous immigration bill. Thus Cooper, the shadow home secretary, identified the central fact of today’s launch: that it was Plan B, for use in the event of failure.

Plan A was that Rishi Sunak would persuade Emmanuel Macron to agree that France would accept returned migrants. The prime minister deployed the same charm, reasonableness and attention to detail that had secured the Windsor Agreement on Northern Ireland, but Macron turned out to be more resistant than Ursula von der Leyen.