Keir Starmer cannot stop boats crossing the Channel.
He cannot stop teenagers stabbing each other in the street.
He cannot stop his own MPs fiddling expenses.
But he’s absolutely confident — confident — that he can stop 18 million British teenagers from using Instagram.
That is the premise of this government’s social media ban.
Not a serious policy.
A press release with a deadline.
The online safety minister flew to Australia to study their under-16 ban.
She came back and told colleagues she was worried — because teenagers are already bypassing it in large numbers.
So let’s be precise about what is happening here.
The UK government sent a minister to the other side of the world, watched a policy fail in real time, and is now considering copying it anyway.
That is not governance. That is cargo cult politics.
Meta has publicly stated that accurate age verification is “a challenge for the whole industry.”
The government has confirmed that parents will not face penalties if their children circumvent the ban.
So we have: an unenforceable ban, administered by companies that admit they can’t check ages, targeting a generation that learned to use a VPN before they learned to drive, with no legal consequences for anyone who ignores it.
What exactly is being banned?
What precisely changes?
The answer is nothing changes — except that Starmer gets to stand at a dispatch box and say he acted.
This is not child protection. It is a photo opportunity dressed up as legislation.
Tell me honestly: do you believe a single word of it?