Yes, the English Channel migrants are being used as a political football – but they have exposed genuine flaws in our national security

What an enormous amount of grandstanding there has been over the recent arrivals of “boat people” from across the Channel. On the one side are those who have defined the 200 or so people reaching the UK over two months as a “major incident”, necessitating the urgent recall of the home secretary from his foreign holiday. On the other, are those who ridicule the concern, talk of overreaction, and argue that the UK can well afford to accommodate those desperate enough to cross perilous winter seas.

Both are wrong. The numbers really do not constitute a “major incident”, or if they do, what might the then government have called the arrival of more than 4,000 people through various cross-Channel routes in the summer of 2015 – numbers that emerged only months later from an HM Prisons report on the atrocious conditions in which new arrivals had been held? The current furore looks like a simple sop to anti-migration Brexiteers as the postponed Commons vote finally approaches.

But to belittle what is happening is also wrong. The increase in crossings may be small, and it may or may not be linked to new efforts by the authorities to reduce the incidence of lorry hijackings and stowaways. But this does not mean there is no question here. There is, but it is not one that is primarily about migration; it is about national security.

True, the UK, as a collection of islands, has a tricky national border, complicated further by its many small harbours and airfields. But one reason why the Leave slogan “take back control” had such resonance was the inadequacy of UK border controls, even after the Home Office brought the Border Agency in-house and renamed it the scarier Border Force. The Windrush scandal only served to underline how poorly records were kept and decisions made.

And what we are now seeing, for the umpteenth time, is the massive muddle the UK has got itself into on national security, responsibility for which seems to span the Home Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Armed Forces, with no one obviously in overall charge. The to-ing and fro-ing of recent days between the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office about whether to call in the navy to patrol the Channel illustrates well the confusion. Should it be up to the home secretary to call in the navy, or should the order come from the MoD, or the prime minister? The MoD, for its part, says that it would be happy to help, but implies that it has not been asked, or at least not in a way it recognises as an order.

Meanwhile, our armed forces are busy patrolling other people’s borders. The navy dispatched a ship to the Black Sea only a few weeks ago – to help protect Ukraine after the incident with Russia near the Sea of Azov. There are UK troops stationed in Estonia – again to help deter Russia. At least until Brexit, we have two ships with the EU’s Frontex operation in the Mediterranean, and we have had a warship ostentatiously sail around the South China Sea, signalling to China that these are international, not Chinese inland waters.

All of which chimes well with “Global Britain” and the UK’s self-image as a sea-faring nation – or it would do if our own borders, especially our maritime borders, were also being patrolled. At one time, it appears, there was aerial surveillance of the English Channel, but this was ended by Theresa May when she was home secretary. On what grounds, it might be asked, and – underlining the muddle of who actually takes responsibility for our borders – why was such a decision the preserve of the home secretary, not the MoD?

The farce of reported drone sightings that closed Gatwick airport on one of the busiest days of the year reflects the same confusion. If there was judged to be a serious threat to the security of flights, surely the military should have been called in a good deal sooner than they were. Instead – oh, how gloriously British – it was the local police, whose own drones may or may not have been the ones then reported by the ever helpful local public. Is this innocence, incompetence, or just the complacency of a country that suffered its last invasion in 1066.

One way or another, successive UK governments seem to have preferred an international presence to domestic defence, our Trident nuclear capability being a case in point. Yet securing national borders is a prime function for the government of any sovereign state. Where are our ships when we need them? Why is our coast guard so small and neglected, when it could – should – be a proud and prominent national service?

Quite by chance, even as the home secretary was dithering about calling in the navy, two other seemingly unrelated ideas floated into the political ether that could usefully be introduced into this mix. The military, it turns out, is finding it hard to recruit and is launching a new campaign to attract millennials. While some young people are undoubtedly attracted to the armed forces by promises of high-tech derring-do, if recruitment is falling short, might there not be others for whom a more home-orientated service would be more attractive?

The US created its Homeland Security department amid an upsurge in patriotism after 9/11. Here in the UK, much has been made of the weakened military covenant – the mutual sympathy and support between soldiers and civilians – in the wake of the Iraq war. Might a more defence-based armed forces perhaps help to reconnect civilians and military? Might there then even be some appetite for a new type of national service? When the private contractor G4S proved unequal to the task of staffing security at the London Olympics, it was replaced by the military – to the overwhelming approval of all concerned.

Newly broached, too, is the notion that government departmental divisions are outdated, first up being a proposal for a new mega-department for infrastructure. Now big departments hold risks, not to speak of the unpopularity (and often ineffectiveness) of attempts to reorganise the civil service. Seen through the prism of the UK’s defective and ill-coordinated security, however, there is surely an argument for reviewing the very sharp divide that traditionally exists between military and civilian.

Modern defence must cater for all sorts of breaches: from the small dinghies of recent weeks with desperate people aboard seeking safety to the reported drones at a major civilian airport to 9/11-style terrorism and knife attacks at the gates of parliament. If the past few weeks and years have demonstrated anything, it is that our whole defence and security establishment is geared towards high-profile international operations, rather than the more mundane defence of the realm. It is time to look afresh at the whole area of border protection; what is more, unlike many changes proposed by governments, a reordering of priorities in this area could command popular support.