The small boats crisis has gone on longer than WWII. I will always regret that I could not solve it. We have to show people the journey is pointless. Rwanda was criticised as a fantasy, but the real fantasy is thinking you can stop the boats without it. For some time I had said that if forced to choose between membership of the ECHR and our national and border security, I would pick the latter. During my tenure, attempting to leave the ECHR with only two years left in the parliament and with no mandate to do so would have been a recipe for constitutional chaos. You couldn't resolve all the issues thrown up by leaving in 24 months with a fractious parliamentary party, a sceptical House of Lords and limited diplomatic capital. Other countries can read our opinion polls. With the help of KCs, we'd done extensive work on leaving. The plan was to say in the election campaign that we'd seek radical reform of the convention and the court, and leave if that could not be achieved quickly. Like so many things in that campaign, it didn't go to plan, and we dropped the idea after Nigel Farage entered the race, for fear it would be dismissed as a panic move and make it harder to focus the election on tax and the economy. With a mandate, a majority and a five-year term, it would be very different, and worth doing. My Sunday Times column today looks at how 👇 thetimes.com/comment/columni…