The Home Office is recruiting a highly-paid communications chief on a salary of up to £91,000 to persuade the public that the Government is getting a grip on Channel crossings, despite record numbers arriving this year.
The department has advertised for a deputy director of migration communications who must demonstrate a resilient character and possess personal authority to handle the politically toxic brief.
Sir Keir Starmer faces mounting pressure to deliver on his repeated pledges to tackle illegal Channel crossings, with failure potentially proving politically fatal for his premiership. The challenge intensified this week when over 1,000 migrants reached British shores aboard 15 dinghies within just 24 hours on Wednesday.
This year’s total has now reached 35,476 arrivals, representing a 33 per cent increase compared to the same point last year and matching the record set in 2022.
Late Thursday afternoon, more than 100 people assembled on Gravelines beach in northern France preparing for the dangerous crossing. Witnesses observed over 50 individuals scrambling aboard a black inflatable craft that approached the shoreline around 5.45pm.
The recruitment advertisement indicates the appointee will hold considerable sway over how the Government frames its narrative on both legal and illegal immigration, an issue consistently ranking as voters’ primary concern in national polling.
The role encompasses developing communication strategies designed to inform the electorate about behind-the-scenes efforts to address the crisis, even as visible evidence suggests the problem is worsening.
Home Office officials insisted the vacancy resulted from staff turnover rather than representing a policy shift or new initiative.
The Conservatives ridiculed the appointment as an admission of defeat. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp declared the recruitment demonstrates everything wrong with the feeble Labour administration.
The Government has abandoned any genuine attempt to halt illegal immigration and is now simply hiring expensive propagandists to obscure their failures, Mr Philp argued.
He dismissed the notion that any number of well-paid communicators could disguise the reality that 2025 has witnessed the worst small boats crisis on record under Labour’s watch.
The Conservative frontbencher outlined his party’s alternative strategy, advocating withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights to enable the removal of all illegal arrivals within seven days.
The lucrative post emerges as Labour grapples with a widening credibility gap on immigration policy following the cancellation of the Rwanda deportation programme and the subsequent explosion in Channel crossings.
Despite negotiating a returns arrangement with France, only 26 individuals have been sent back across the Channel this year from more than 35,000 arrivals, exposing the scheme’s limited impact.
The advertisement’s emphasis on resilience suggests Whitehall expects whoever fills the role to endure sustained political and media scrutiny whilst defending increasingly difficult-to-justify statistics.
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