PEOPLE smugglers must be treated “like terrorists” to stop small boat crossings on the Channel, Keir Starmer has said.
Speaking at the Interpol general assembly in Glasgow on Monday morning, the Prime Minister pledged that stopping people smuggling was his “personal mission”.
He said the UK must take an international approach to the small boats issue, which sees asylum seekers and migrants smuggled over the Channel – a perilous journey which can prove fatal.
Starmer said: “There is nothing progressive about turning a blind eye as men, women and children die in the channel, and you don’t advance the cause of global justice or compassion for those individuals to pretend that there is.”
Critics of the last Government’s attempts to “stop the boats” – which included the now-binned Rwanda deal – said the Tories should have opened up more safe and legal routes for asylum seekers to reach Britain, arguing that many were forced into making the dangerous Channel crossing.
Starmer (above) said: “People smuggling should be viewed as a global security threat similar to terrorism. We’ve got to combine resources, share intelligence and tactics, and tackle the problem upstream, working together to shut down the smuggling routes.”
He added: “When I was the director of public prosecutions, it was my personal mission to smash the terrorist gangs and we worked across borders to ensure the safety of citizens across Europe and across the world.
“Now, as the UK’s Prime Minister, it is my personal mission to smash the people-smuggling gangs, and, look, that starts here in the UK.”
The UK Government has said that it will double a previous commitment to fund a new border command agency with an additional £75 million.
Speaking about the extra funding, Starmer added: “This will support a new organised immigration crime intelligence unit – hundreds of new investigators and intelligence officers backed by state-of-the-art technology.
“We’re also investing a further £58m in our National Crime Agency, including strengthening its data analysis and intelligence capabilities, and we’ll also legislate to give those fighting these gangs enhanced powers too.”
The Prime Minister stressed the importance of “cross-border co-operation,” adding: “International agreements matter. We have to use every tool that we have – operational, diplomatic, political – to join up our response.”
He cited an agreement with France to increase intelligence sharing, a treaty that the UK is negotiating with Germany and work with Italy that includes dismantling supply chains for maritime equipment.
Starmer added: “As part of the UK’s wider reset with the European Union, we are seeking a new security pact, including restoring access to real-time intelligence sharing networks.
“At the European political community this Thursday in Hungary, I’ll be putting this issue at the top of the international agenda once again.”
While the Government has said it wants to see the number of crossings fall, Labour have so far refused to set out a target.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast on Monday morning, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper (above) refused to set out a target for reducing the figures, saying: “What I’m not going to do is what Rishi Sunak did […] just, you know, set out slogans and say everything was going to be solved in 12 months, and all on the basis of a slogan, because I don’t think people will take that seriously anymore.”
Since data for Channel crossings became available in 2018, the highest number on record was reached in 2022 with 45,774 people making the journey two years ago.
Since the start of this year, there have been 31,094 people detected crossing, up 16% on this time last year.
Vietnamese migrants accounted for the single largest group of arrivals in the first six months of this year, at 17% of the total.
This is followed by people from Afghanistan (15%), Iran (12%) and Syria (11%).
