DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Heed this tragedy and make Rwanda work

At dead of night on a beach near Calais, traffickers jam 70 fretful migrants on to a flimsy boat. The destination is England, but they have barely set off when the inevitable happens.

The overloaded craft capsizes. In the chaos and panic, five are dragged under and succumb to the freezing waters, with others suffering acute hypothermia.

Played out early yesterday, this was just another heartbreaking scene in the long-running small boats’ saga.

The traffickers won’t care. They will have been paid in advance. But anyone with an ounce of compassion should take this latest tragedy as a call for action.

Rishi Sunak has been trying to cut cross-Channel migration. Numbers were significantly down last year after a returns agreement with Albania and better co-ordination of Anglo-French policing.

A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, onboard a Border Force vessel following a small boat incident in the Channel on January 13

Numbers were significantly down last year after a returns agreement with Albania and better co-ordination of Anglo-French policing

If migrants believe that despite braving the capricious waters of the Channel they won’t be allowed to remain in Britain, the journey becomes far less attractive. So why, then, can’t Conservatives unite behind their leader to get this legislation through?

But his flagship Rwanda Bill, under which asylum seekers coming here illegally would be sent to the African country for assessment, remains stuck in a parliamentary quagmire.

This measure is a genuine attempt to break the traffickers’ business model.

If migrants believe that despite braving the capricious waters of the Channel they won’t be allowed to remain in Britain, the journey becomes far less attractive. So why, then, can’t Conservatives unite behind their leader to get this legislation through?

Some on the Tory Left fear it’s too harsh and could breach international law, while the self-declared Spartans say it’s too soft, allowing too much scope for legal challenge.

Both sides have been strutting around Westminster threatening to torpedo the Bill (which returns to the Commons tomorrow) if they don’t get what they want.

It’s time for a grown-up debate. Yes, there are imperfections in the planned legislation, but they must put down the megaphones and come up with a solution they can all live with – and one that will work.

If they need an incentive, the Tory Spartans should consider what happened to their obsessively warlike namesakes in the ancient world. They were ultimately overrun by the barbarian hordes and their homeland sacked.

If these hubristic MPs don’t see sense and come together, something similar could soon happen to their party and their country.

Both sides have been strutting around Westminster threatening to torpedo the Bill (which returns to the Commons tomorrow) if they don’t get what they want

Keir’s fifth column

While Sir Keir Starmer was trying to appear statesmanlike by supporting UK involvement in air strikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels, some of his backbenchers were doing their best to undermine him.

At a rally in Parliament Square, Apsana Begum railed against the military action, which was in response to Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.

It was ‘shameful’, she said. ‘An exercise in imperial power.’ Other speakers were nakedly anti-Semitic, one even calling for massacres of Israeli citizens to be ‘normalised’.

So Sir Keir may believe Israel and the West have a right to defend themselves against terror attacks.

But how many in his party are more in sympathy with the fundamentalist Houthis, whose slogan goes: ‘Death to America. Death to Israel. Curse the Jews’?

While Sir Keir Starmer was trying to appear statesmanlike by supporting UK involvement in air strikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels, some of his backbenchers were doing their best to undermine him

What’s in a name?

Many will understand the late Queen’s furious reaction after Harry and Meghan claimed they had her blessing to name their daughter Lilibet.

There is something uniquely intimate about family pet-names. Lilibet was how Queen Elizabeth pronounced her own name when a small child, and it stuck. However, it was only ever meant to be used by closest family and friends.

Appropriating it so publicly and suggesting she had endorsed the idea will leave many readers disturbed and saddened.