We have to wish Liz Truss well, but it’s a mistake not to make immigration a key priority – if she doesn’t fix it, she’ll be out

It’s hard to imagine a prime minister who took office with such a list of problems.

And there can hardly be anyone who doesn’t wish Liz Truss well in dealing with them.

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Finally there is politics and then there is people’s lives. And right now, all of our lives are being affected by the crises our country is facing.

Perhaps it is inevitable that the new prime minister will want to carve out her priorities from a long list of issues.

Liz Truss did so as she entered No. 10 this week, saying her top three priorities are the energy crisis, tax cuts and the NHS.

All of these are serious things. However, if there was ever an issue the government won’t get a grip on, it’s the NHS – an organization that’s growing every year but finds itself in perpetual crisis.

In any case, these and many other issues are worthy of all attention.

But there is another issue that every prime minister should prioritize, and that is our nation’s borders.

I’ve said this before, but if you don’t have borders, then you don’t really have a country.

If you have no borders, this national health service becomes an international health service available to people who have never paid for it but can take what they want from it.

If you have no borders but allow people to flow into your country illegally, then it doesn’t matter how much you tax hard-working people because you’re fostering a black market of people who will never contribute to the national purse.

Most importantly, when you lose control of who comes to your country, you lose control of everything else related to your country.

When people see criminal gangs operating on the streets, they wonder where they’re from.

Are they all homegrown? Or are many of them newcomers, people drawn into gangs for having come to live the life of an illegal migrant in Britain?

Look at the boatloads of people entering our country illegally every day now and realize that the majority are young men.

Will they deposit into our country? Or will they become a burden to him?

Despite the high hopes of the open borders lobby, most will spend their lives as a burden to this country.

There can be many crises to deal with. But the English Channel immigration crisis – nearly 1,000 crossed in a single DAY over the weekend – should be part of it.

In particular, Boris Johnson failed to deal with the crisis.

For a long time it seemed he hoped we, the British public, would not notice. But we did.

The number of migrants crossing the English Channel increased 100-fold during his tenure.

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From a politician who promised he would regain control of our borders, it was a terrible failure. There is no reason why Truss has to fail at this task as well.

But there are already signs that she will. After all, one of the big challenges for the previous cabinet was the whole question of who is actually in charge of our borders.

After leaving the EU, many thought we were in full control again.

But Emmanuel Macron continued to play political games with migrants leaving French shores.

More importantly, human rights lawyers and others continued to use the European Convention, to which we remain subject, to force the government to bid a foreign court in Strasbourg.

The previous government toyed with trying to change that.

At one point, it appeared that Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab might actually propose a British Bill of Rights to replace the European one, so that British courts, not foreign ones, could be the final court of appeal on migration policy.

As with almost everything, the government hesitated.

But a bill on the matter should be tabled in the House of Commons next week.

But worryingly, as The Sun revealed today, Truss has already decided to trash the bill. It’s a worrying sign.

It doesn’t matter how many times you approach the issue, this is a matter that needs to be resolved.

We must be responsible for our own laws. And if we’re not, Truss – like its predecessors – will find that there’s little if anything you can do to control our borders.

So yes, there are many challenges to overcome. But Truss shouldn’t duck this big one.

The Conservative Party will be in power for 15 years before the next election.

It will not hide anywhere. No ifs and buts. If our borders aren’t secure by then, we’ll know who’s to blame.