Yvette Cooper’s immigration reforms have already been dismissed as too little, too late. If Keir Starmer hopes that the announcement will stem the flow of support to Reform, he’s woefully delusional.

A leading criticism of the new migration white paper is the lack of a cap on numbers, with the Home Secretary claiming it’s not just necessary but counterproductive. While she’s right to point out that David Cameron and Theresa May repeatedly broke their promise to limit numbers to the ‘tens of thousands’, she is idiotic for rejecting a new legally-binding cap out of hand. David Cameron’s pledge to bring down migration was always a waste of time.

While we were a member of the European Union, we had no legal way of preventing huge influxes from across the continent, especially from Eastern Europe after the accession of Romania and Bulgaria.

But Boris Johnson, who is more responsible for the rise of Reform UK than any other politician in Britain, never repeated the tens of thousands pledge nor actually committed to a cap.

He repeatedly promised to ‘take back control’ of immigration, cleverly couching the fact that while Brexit would give him the power to decide who comes to Britain, he had no intention of stemming the flow.

A legally-binding cap on numbers agreed annually by MPs, paired with the sovereignty granted to us by Brexit, would objectively work.

Indeed the Home Secretary and any civil servant who attempted to breach the cap could be sent to prison for doing so.

It is admittedly a source of great frustration that prior to Brexit, we had no way of enforcing a cap; then after Brexit we had a PM with the power to control migration but who refused to use it.

Yes, there may well be a ‘boy who cried wolf’ concern about once again promising a certain number of migrants, but that is not the reason this Labour Government won’t commit to one.

It is clear they are refusing to do so because they have no intention of bringing migration down to a level any ordinary Brit would consider ‘reasonable’.

Most Brits would probably accept, at the absolutely top end of numbers, net migration of 100,000.

If Keir Starmer really wanted to prevent Nigel Farage’s journey to No. 10, he would go further and ensure we enjoy a number of years where more foreigners leave Britain than arrive.

Pair that with a concerted effort to deport the hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants, and foreign-born criminals, and Labour may have a hope of staying in power.

I bet that come the next election, net migration will still be running at over 300,000 a year - a figure which, while much lower than the record-breaking 900,000 under Boris, is still totally unsustainable and disgraceful to most ordinary Brits.

Yvette Cooper may be able to say she didn’t break any promises by avoiding a cap, but it won’t help save the Labour Party - nor indeed the country.