Political parties are under no obligation to support any policy just because they may have supported it in the past. Such an insistence on eternal consistency is what gives politics a bad name: it prevents policy – and parties – from changing and improving, locking individual politicians into intellectual cages not of their own making.

So it is perhaps not the slam dunk Labour’s opponents imagine it to be that 20 years ago, the Labour government was proposing to process all asylum seekers in locations outside the EU. The home secretary at the time, David Blunkett, was eventually forced to retreat from the policy, under pressure not least from his own MPs. Still, it was a serious proposal, even if it never eventually materialised.

This government no doubt wishes it had. Instead it is having to come up with some sort of practical solution to the exponential growth in asylum seekers fleeing the EU to get to the more welcoming, tolerant haven of the UK.

It’s been known for months that ministers were seeking an agreement with a third country where applicants for refugee status could be assessed and completed. Yet the degree of outrage, sincere or otherwise, at today’s announcement is as loud and angry as could be expected had plans to process applications in Rwanda were a bolt out of the blue.

A reminder of the scale of the problem might be in order. In 2018, only 297 people took their lives in their hands and successfully made the perilous journey across some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes to get from France to England. Either because word gets around quickly in the various camps occupied by immigrants along the north French coast, or due to good old fashioned public relations by the people traffickers, that figure, in 2021, rose to 28,431 – an increase of very nearly 10,000 per cent. Few imagine that that number will have dropped by the time 2022 is over.

Among all the heat generated by the debate about asylum and immigration, only two solutions to the problem have emerged. The first, favoured by most of the Left, is to create more “safe routes” for asylum. This would have the effect of depriving the traffickers of their business and would have the added, immeasurably valuable, benefit of not putting asylum seekers’ lives at risk from crossing choppy seas.

But while such a solution would help narrow the traffickers’ profit margins, it would do nothing to stop the massive increase in people claiming asylum here – obviously it would result in many, many more than at present. And who could blame them?

Offshore processing is the only other practical solution being offered, and it may not turn out to be particularly viable; my suspicion is that the trial contract with the Rwandan government will not see the kind of reduction in cross-Channel traffic the home secretary, Priti Patel, hopes for, and that the exercise may be soon abandoned.

That must surely be the Labour Party’s fervent hope. Today many of its MPs have jumped to criticise the government as heartless and cynical, with many suspecting a “dead cat” strategic manoeuvre to deflect attention from Partygate fines. But if the scheme is to go ahead, and if it has the desired effect of dissuading cross-channel trips, then Labour cannot with any credibility go into the next election opposing offshore processing.

While Blunkett’s serious consideration of a similar scheme does not oblige Keir Starmer or Yvette Cooper to follow suit, it stands as a reminder that such radical solutions are not always the monopoly of Right-wing governments and parties. And if the Rwandan solution works, there is a risk that Labour will simultaneously tear itself apart over the issue, with Left and Right taking opposing views on continuing Patel’s legacy in office, while losing all credibility with an electorate which, on the whole, balances its intolerance for law-breaking with a liberal tolerance for those seeking refuge from abroad.

The uncomfortable fact for Labour is that while many on the Left choose to believe that thousands of immigrants arriving illegally on our shores isn’t a problem, that is not the view of most ordinary voters. Therefore something must be done and the political parties need to present their own solutions. If the Rwandan gambit fails, then the Conservatives will have no more answers than Labour about what to do with our porous southern border. But if Rwanda is successful, Labour will be forced either to commit to continuing the scheme in office, or risk returning to square one while opening itself up to the perennial (and often accurate) accusation that it favours “open borders”.

That is an insupportable position to hold. Labour only ever comes close to government by persuading voters that it has changed, that it is not the über-liberal vehicle for achieving John Lennon’s Imagine that it is often suspected of being. It is perfectly fair for Labour to criticise the Rwandan offshoring proposal. It is far less acceptable to refuse to come up with solid, detailed alternatives that will have the effect of drastically reducing the flow of asylum seekers into Britain. So far we’ve had plenty of the former and not nearly enough of the latter.