Afternoon summary
Downing Street says it expects the UK to be hit by more tariffs when Donald Trump announces his latest round of trade barriers on Wednesday, and said it “reserves the right” to respond to protect the national interest. The Conservatives claim that shows the government has failed to protect British business. (See 4.17pm.)
Keir Starmer has said Britons are “right” to be “angry about illegal migration”. (See 8.53am.)
The Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has said his party can replace the Conservatives as the part of Middle England. (See 11.11am.)
Minister backs Birmingham city council in declaring major incident over bin strike
Birmingham city council says it is declaring a major incident over the impact of the ongoing bin strike, as it estimates 17,000 tonnes of waste remains uncollected around the city, PA Media reports. PA says:
Members of the Unite union in Birmingham are holding an all-out strike in a long-running dispute, after the scrapping of waste collection and recycling officer roles, which has led to rubbish piling up in the streets and residents complaining about rats.
The council says daily blocking of its depots by pickets has meant workers cannot get their vehicles out to collect waste.
It said declaring a major incident will initially increase the availability of street cleansing and fly-tip removal, with an additional 35 vehicles and crews around the city.
It will also allow the council to explore what further support is available from neighbouring authorities and the government, to help manage the situation, and work with partners to better manage health and fire risks that the build-up of rubbish is causing.
A focus of the major incident will be on making sure bin lorries can safely enter and exit the council’s waste depots.
Speaking in the Commons, Jim McMahon, communities minister, said the government did not have the power to intervene in the strike, but that he backed the council in declaring a major incident. He said:
We encourage all parties to redouble their efforts to get around the table and to find a resolution.
To do this, any deal to end industrial action must maintain value for money and ensure fit-for-purpose waste collection services without creating or storing up liabilities for the future.
Sentencing Council expected to suspend plans for new guidelines
Ministers expect the Sentencing Council to suspend plans for new sentencing guidelines that could have led to criminals getting different sentences depending on their age, sex and ethnicity, Jessica Elgot reports.
Yvette Cooper tells MPs youth mobility scheme with EU 'not our plan'
Last month the Times reported that the government was considering offering the EU a youth mobility scheme as part of its attempt to reset relations with Brussels. “Under a plan to be tabled by British negotiators, tens of thousands of young EU workers and students would be able to come to the UK to live and work for two years, with the possibility of a one-year extension,” the paper said. “The reciprocal scheme would allow young Britons, aged 18-30, similar access to countries in the European Union.”
During Home Office questions in the Commons today, Lisa Smart, the Lib Dem home affairs spokesperson, said she was “delighted” to read the report which she said showed the government was adopting “a common sense approach that will give our young people opportunities and help grow our economy”.
But Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, told Smart that the government was not planning to do what the Times had reported. She said:
As the front bench spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats knows, that is not our plan, and we are clear that net migration needs to come down.
It quadrupled under the previous Conservative government in the space of just four years. Those numbers need to come down.
In response to another question, from her Tory predecessor James Cleverly, the home secretary also refused to rule increasing the minimum income threshold for a migrant seeking a visa for a spouse or partner to join them in the UK.
When Cleverly was home secretary, he raised the threshold to £29,000 for a visa of this kind, with plans to raise if futher to £38,700. When Cooper took office, she shelved plans for the rise to £38,700 pending a review.
Cooper told Cleverly the government would outline its plans in a forthcoming white paper which she said include “measures to reduce net migration, including making sure that employers recruit and train here in the UK”.
PA Media has more on impact on the UK of the new tariffs threatened by President Trump. PA says:
President Trump has already announced a 25% import tax will be introduced on all cars imported to the US, a measure which will be a blow to the UK’s automotive industry.
Some 16.9% of UK car exports were to the US last year, representing a total of more than 101,000 units worth £7.6bn.
The levy is on top of a series of tariffs set to come into effect on 2 April, which could include a general 20% tax on UK products in response to the rate of VAT, which Trump deems to be discriminatory against the US …
The new tariffs could derail the government’s plans to grow the economy, and they come into force just after chancellor Rachel Reeves made a series of cuts at the spring statement in order to restore a narrow buffer in the public spending headroom.
Losses deepened for the UK’s FTSE 100 stock exchange, which was trading around 1.3% lower during Monday.
European stocks are also still seeing sharp falls, and US markets have opened lower with the S&P 500 down about 1.4% in early trading.
The budget watchdog has warned that a full-blown trade war, in which the UK responds in kind to Trump’s tariffs, could knock 1% off gross domestic product, a measure of the size of the economy, and wipe out Reeves’ headroom.
The government does not think it will be able to pass its emergency law allowing it to scrap the Sentencing Councils’s alleged “two-tier guidance” on pre-sentence reports before Easter, Henry Zeffman is reporting for the BBC. He says within government it has been argued that the legislation “would be obstructed in the House of Lords, especially by eminent lawyers, if the government were seen to be moving with excessive speed”.
Tories claim No 10 admission UK won't avoid new US tariffs shows Starmer has failed to protect British business
The Conservatives have criticised the government for failing to avert the threat of President Trump including the UK in his next round of tariffs.
Responding to Downing Street saying this morning that it did not expect the UK to be exempt from the tariffs due to be announced on Wednesday (see 1.01pm), Andrew Griffith, the shadow business secretary, said:
This news is potentially a hammer blow not just to British businesses and workers but to his own chancellor whose creative accounting at the emergency budget fails to include the impact of tariffs
Labour claims talks with the US are going “well”. But, if this is what well looks like, I wouldn’t like to see what the opposite looks like. The prime minister has so far failed to come up with the goods, he needs to rekindle our US trade deal.
This is just further proof that, when Labour negotiates, Britain loses.
Police will review case that led to parents being arrested for complaining about daughter's school, MPs told
Diana Johnson, the policing minister, has told MPs that there will be a review of a case in Hertfordshire that saw two parents arrested and detained for complaining about their daughter’s primary school.
The case was raised by Oliver Dowden, the local MP and former Conservative deputy PM, who said it was an example of the police interfering with free expression. He also complained about the fact that a councillor who took up the parents’ case was told by police that she might be recorded as a suspect in the harrassment investigation.
Dowden said:
Many constituents in my constituency are exasperated by the fact that when there’s shoplifting or burglary the police are unable to turn up, yet at the same time they were able to send six officers to get themselves involved with a dispute with a local school and to warn local elected representatives off getting involved.
Sadly, this misallocation of resources and unwarranted police over-reach is not an isolated example. So, can I urge the minister to avoid engaging in political pointscoring and instead join me in sending a very clear message from both sides of this house that our expectation is that the police should be focused on solving real crimes and stay out of legitimate free expression and democratic debate.
In response, Johnson said:
This is an operational matter for policing and it’s quite clear the chief constable and the police and crime commissioner have set out that there will be a review of what happened in that particular case.
UK 'back in the game' given leadership Starmer showing on Ukraine, says Finnish president
The UK and Finland are “tied hip-to-hip” on Nato, Finnish president Alexander Stubb has said at a meeting with Keir Starmer in Downing Street. (See 2.57pm.)
Stubb also praised the leadership Starmer was showing on Ukraine, saying he felt the UK was now “back in the game”.
Speaking to the media in Downing Street, Stubb said much of his family had dual Finland-UK nationality and added: “Keir and I hit it off, in the beginning, straight off the bat.”
He added:
I’m really glad to see the leadership the UK is showing, not least in the war in Ukraine. And in many ways, in my mind, the UK is back, back in the game.
We’ve had an interesting week in many ways, last week in Paris with the coalition of the willing, many phone calls with Zelensky, myself meeting President Trump on Saturday, and we continue the conversations today and try to find solutions together.
But I think Finland and the UK are tied hip-to-hip and in so many places, including Nato and of course, JEF (Joint Expeditionary Force] which you guys founded.
Starmer said “on all the important issues, whether it’s Ukraine or other global issues” the UK and Finland were “very closely aligned”. He added: “And certainly I think the closer we can work together on some of these challenges, the better.”
Government should have 'pushed back' against 'two-tier justice' claims, says Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti
The Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti told the World at One she thinks the government should have “pushed back” at the Tory claims that the new guidelines from the Sentencing Council amount to “two-tier justice”.
Chakrabarti, who was shadow attorney general when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader and who before that head of Liberty, the campaign group, said she thought Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, has misrepresented what the guidelines were doing. They say judges should require pre-sentence reports before offenders from certain groups, including ethnic minorities, get sentenced. Chakrabarti said this was a response to evidence showing there is structural discrimination against minorities in sentencing.
She said:
I certainly don’t think of that giving this kind of advice [a pre-sentence report] amounts to two-tier justice, and I think the government should have pushed back against that narrative …
I’m nervous that with Reform on the rise, and the Conservatives running scared from Reform, the government is presented with this choice and with these pressures, and it’s too easy to be drawn to the right on matters of rights, freedoms and justice. I would urge caution on that.
And I would urge caution when it comes to interfering either with independent judges or with a Sentencing Council that ought to be independent of government.
Sarah Montague, the presenter, asked Chakrabarti to respond to an argument made by the columnist Stephen Bush in the FT explaining why the guidelines can be seen as unfair. Bush says:
If we think that pre-sentence reports result in judges making better decisions, it’s not fair for some offenders to be the beneficiary of better decisions and for others to not be.
Just as an illustration of that, 64 per cent of young offenders from “other” ethnic groups are eligible for free school meals (compared with about a quarter of the school-age population), while 63 per cent of young offenders from a “Black” minority background are. It seems a fair assumption that not having very much money is an aggravating factor for going on to commit a crime. So why should the 52 per cent of young “white” offenders eligible for FSM not automatically qualify for a pre-sentence report?
Chakrabarti said in an ideal world she would like every offender to have a pre-sentence report. When it was put to her that this was not feasible, she said a range of factors should decide whether resources should be spent on a pre-sentence report. If the offender comes from a different background to the sentencer, the sentencer should be more inclined to learn more about them via a pre-sentence report, she said.
Updated
Keir Starmer has had a meeting in Downing Street with Alexander Stubb, the Finnish president. At the weekend Stubb was playing golf with President Trump in Florida, but today’s bilateral was more conventional.
Lib Dems urge government to impose retaliatory tariffs on Tesla car imports
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has renewed his call for the government to impose tariffs on Tesla cars in retaliation for tariffs imposed by the US on British goods. He said:
I haven’t read the whole of it because it was so awful, but [President Trump has] written a book called The Art Of The Deal. I got mine second-hand, I’d like to say, I don’t want to put money in his pocket.
But in the Art Of The Deal he talks about if the other guy looks desperate or weak, he’s going to walk all over you. So I think if you’re dealing with Donald Trump you’ve got to realise who you’re dealing with.
He’s not an ordinary American president where we can be friends and trust and have that great relationship we’ve had with so many American presidents, of all political parties, Republicans and Democrats. He’s not that sort of person. I think we’ve got to be tough with him.
Tesla is owned Elon Musk, who is a key figure in the Trump administration as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge). Davey first called for a tariff on Tesla cars after the US imposed tariffs on British steel imports, but further tariffs are expected on Wednesday which could affect many other goods being sold to the US.
Updated
Starmer welcomes plan for Adolescence to be screened free in schools, saying it prompts debate about radicalisation
Keir Starmer has welcomed an initiative that will allow pupils to watch the Netflix drama Adolescence for free in secondary schools.
At a roundtable event in Downing Street with the programme’s creators, charities and young people, he said he had found the series very powerful when he watched it with his teenage children because of the way it prompted a debate about the online radicalisation of young men, and misogyny.
To coincide with the meeting, No 10 announced that Into Film, a charity that makes drama free to schools through its Into Film+ streaming service, will allow all secondary schools in the country to show the programme.
Starmer said this was “an important initiative to encourage as many pupils as possible to watch the show”.
Explaining why this mattered, he said:
As a father, watching this show with my teenage son and daughter, I can tell you - it hit home hard.
As I see from my own children, openly talking about changes in how they communicate, the content they’re seeing, and exploring the conversations they’re having with their peers is vital if we are to properly support them in navigating contemporary challenges, and deal with malign influences.
This isn’t a challenge politicians can simply legislate for. Believe me, if I could pull a lever to solve it, I would. Only by listening and learning from the experiences of young people and charities can we tackle the issues this groundbreaking show raises.
Starmer said that, when he was director of public prosecutions, he saw directly the damage caused by misogyny and violence.
Jack Thorne, the co-writer of the series who was at the meeting, said:
We made this show to provoke a conversation. We wanted to pose the question - how do we help stop this growing crisis. So to have the opportunity to take this into schools is beyond our expectations. We hope it’ll lead to teachers talking to the students, but what we really hope is it’ll lead to students talking amongst themselves.
Under the Online Safety Act, a law passed by the last government that is coming into force now, internet companies face much tighter restrictions intended to ensure that children are not exposed to dangerous content, including abusive and hateful misogyny and violence.
Downing Street said that the government regards this legislation as “not the end of the conversation but the foundation” and that, if Starmer thinks the law needs strengthening, he will not hesitate to do so.
Updated
In a post on his Lawyer Writes Substack, the legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg says that emergency legislation over-ruling the Sentencing Council on the alleged “two-tier justice” guidance may have little practical impact. But it will damage government relations with the judiciary, he says. He explains:
Amending the guideline would be largely symbolic because legislation could not prevent magistrates or judges requesting pre-sentence reports for defendants in the 10 “cohorts” identified by the Sentencing Council. Equally, a sentencer may decide not to request a pre-sentence report for any offender while the full guideline remains in force if the court thinks it already has enough information about the offender and the offence.
Ministers clearly see this as a trial of strength with the judges who, by law, make up the majority of the Sentencing Council. At a superficial level it is a battle that the government will win, since the judges can be relied on to respect the sovereignty of parliament.
But at a deeper level it is a fight that will worsen relations between the executive and the judiciary. It will further damage the standing of the lord chancellor, Shabana Mahmood, among the senior judges who decided at an emergency meeting of the Sentencing Council last Tuesday evening to reject the last-minute amendments she had requested.
No 10 says it expects UK will be affected by new Trump tariffs coming on Wednesday
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson restated the government’s refusal to rule out retaliatory tariffs against the US.
Asked about the government’s response to the threat of the UK being included in the new round of tariffs coming from President Trump this week, the spokesperson replied:
We’ve been clear that a trade war with US is not in the national interest, but we will reserve the right to respond in a way that does protect British industry once we’ve seen the detail.
And in the meantime, we’re going to continue to have these constructive discussions to agree a UK-US economic deal.
The spokesperson also confirm that the government expects the UK to be affected by the new tariffs. The government is trying to negotiate exemptions, but ministers do not expect to achieve this by Wednesday.
The spokesperson said:
When it when it comes to tariffs, the prime minister has been clear he will always act in the national interest, and we’ve been actively preparing for all eventualities ahead of the expected announcements from President Trump this week, which would expect the UK to be impacted by alongside other countries.
Updated
After Home Office questions in the Commons, there will be an urgent question at 3.30pm on the political situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, followed by two statements: on the earthquake in Myanmar, and on Birmingham city council.
No 10 declines to rule out abolishing Sentencing Council - but not as part of emergency bill on alleged 'two-tier justice' rules
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson said Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, will “shortly” give an update on the plans for emergency legislation that will allow the government to block the Sentencing Council guidance, coming into force in England and Wales tomorrow, saying judges they should normally get a pre-sentence report before sentencing people from ethnic, cultural or faith minorities.
The spokesperson said the government wanted to introduce a bill “very quickly”, but would not say how long it would take to clear the Commons and the Lords. There have been reports saying ministers would like it to become law this week.
The guidelines have been described as creating “two-tier justice”, and the spokesperson said the government was acting because it was opposed to “differential treatment” for different races and religions.
The spokesperson said the emergency legislation would focus narrowly on this issue. But he also said the government was committed to considering more broadly “the role of the Sentencing Council”, but he added: “We’re obviously not going to rush that work, and we will consider it carefully.”
Despite being asked several times, the spokesperson refused to rule out the Sentencing Council being scrapped. Asked why he was not ruling that out, the spokesperson said:
I’m just not going to get ahead of the work being done. We are not going to rush into ruling anything in or out. We need to look at the Sentencing Council and its role carefully, and any futher changes will be set out in due course.
Updated
Green party accuses Starmer of dancing 'to Farage's tune', as it renews call for more safe routes for asylum seekers
The Green party has accused Keir Starmer of dancing to Nigel Farage’s tune on immigration.
In a statement released in response to Starmer’s speech this morning at the Organised Immigration Crime summit, Carla Denyer, the Green party’s co-leader, said:
The UK’s inhumane and ineffective approach to migration is costing lives, and yet Keir Starmer is choosing to dance to Nigel Farage’s tune rather than making the common sense changes needed to make the system safer and fairer.
We urgently need to introduce safe routes for people fleeing war, violence or persecution to seek safety in the UK so that people aren’t forced into the hands of people smugglers.
It’s shameful that this Labour government continues to ignore the only solution that will prevent people from dying during dangerous journeys to the UK, all because they are running scared of Farage’s Reform party.
Commenting on the Lib Dem local elections campaign launch (see 11.11am and 11.48am), Nigel Huddleston, the Conservative party co-chair, said:
The only thing serious about the Liberal Democrats is the damage they do to local services. Where they run councils, they are letting staff work part-time on full-time pay.
Only the Conservative party, under new leadership, are serious about opposing this dreadful government – and only a vote for the Conservatives on 1 May will deliver lower taxes and better services.
Keir Starmer has confirmed in comments to GB News that the government will fast-track legislation through parliament to block the Sentencing Council guidelines telling judges they should normally get a pre-sentence report before sentencing people from ethnic, cultural or faith minorities.
Here is Kiran Stacey’s story about this from yesterday.
Former Irish PM Leo Varadkar calls for Theresa May's 'backstop' Brexit deal to be revived to mitigate impact of Trump tariffs
Lisa O’Carroll is the Guardian’s acting Ireland correspondent.
The UK should dust down Theresa May’s Brexit “backstop” and voluntarily implement the EU’s customs laws, Ireland’s former prime minister has said, arguing that a UK/EU trade deal like this would boost trade in the face of damaging tariffs expected to be announced by Donald Trump.
Leo Varadkar said the change in America’s policy towards the EU makes a new deal an obvious solution to the UK’s growth issue.
Writing in a column in the Irish edition of the Sunday Times, he said:
Leaders could do worse than dust down a version of the “backstop” negotiated during Brexit with Theresa May as prime minister. Under this agreement, the UK would voluntarily implement the EU customs code, allowing free trade in goods between Britain and Europe again, giving Britain the boost to growth it desperately needs.
Alongside a veterinary agreement, it would remove the need for checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Unionists might even support it this time. A mechanism would be needed to ensure the UK, given its size, would have a meaningful input into any common rules that it would adopt. Ireland’s farmers and traders would benefit greatly were this to happen.
The Brexit backstop was devised by May as a means of keeping the border open between Northern Ireland and Ireland and provided for a UK-wide customs union with the EU. But it was rejected in the hardline deal ultimately negotiated by her successor Boris Johnson.
Updated
Keir Starmer led a roundtable discussion joined by Home Office minister Angela Eagle, Border Security Commander Martin Hewitt and Home Office, Border Force and National Crime Agency officials at the Organised Immigration Crime summit, PA Media reports. Starmer said “serious problems” require serious solutions and there were “concrete proposals” on the table.
Ed Davey staged one of his trademark dignity-free photocalls today at the Lib Dem local elections campaign launch. At a garden in Henley, he tried his hand at hobby horsing (which apparently is an actual thing, not just a figure of speech). He was making a point about the elections being a two-horse race in many areas. He said:
In much of the country, the local elections in May are a two-horse race between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. We can overtake the Conservatives as the second biggest party of local government in this election, replacing failing Conservative-run councils that take their residents for granted with Liberal Democrat ones that work hard for their local communities.
81% of voters think government handling cost of living badly, poll suggests
Around four out of five voters (81%) think the government is doing badly at managing the cost of living, according to polling by YouGov. Only 12% think it is doing well. Even among Labour supporters, people who think it is doing badly on this (67%) outnumber by three to one those who think it is doing well (22%).
YouGov also says that, on this issue, the government is seen to be doing as badly as Liz Truss was when she was in office. In his commentary for YouGov, Dylan Difford explains:
Eight in ten Britons (81%) now say the government is managing the cost of living badly, up from 74% last November. This is also the highest number saying so since August 2023 and roughly the same as the 82% who said the government was handling the cost of living badly after Liz Truss’s mini-budget in September 2022.
Just one in eight (12%) believe the government has handled the matter well, from 15% in November. This leaves a net score of -69 for the Labour government on the issue, a whole ten points lower than the -59 net score for the last Conservative government when they lost the election last July.
Updated
The Conservative party and Reform UK have both claimed that the government is failing to tackle illegal immigration.
In a statement about the Organised Immigration Crime summit, Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said:
The government’s plan to ‘smash the gangs’ already lies in tatters. We are about to see 30,000 illegal channel crossings since election reached this week, a 31% increase. This year so far has been the worst on record. This is a direct consequence of the government cancelling the Rwanda deterrent before it even started.
And the Reform UK MP Lee Anderson said:
Labour’s failure to control illegal migration is not just an issue of border security—it is a national crisis. As the numbers show, we are not receiving the best and brightest in terms of illegal migrants.
No country has benefited from this level of unbridled immigration. It has placed a massive strain on our public services, our safety, and the pockets of our hardworking taxpayers.
Reform UK will freeze all non-essential immigration, deport foreign criminals, and deport anyone who has illegally entered the country.
Ed Davey claims Lib Dems can replace Tories as party of Middle England
Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, has said that his party could replace the Conservatives as the party of Middle England.
In comments released ahead of his party’s local election campaign launch, Davey said:
These local elections are a chance for the Liberal Democrats to replace the Conservatives as the party of Middle England. We can overtake the Conservatives as the second biggest party of local government, replacing failing Conservative-run councils that take their residents for granted with Liberal Democrat ones that work hard for their local communities.
Liberal Democrats are now the natural home for voters disillusioned with Labour but who still haven’t forgiven the Conservatives for all the damage they did to our country.
People are deeply disappointed with Labour’s failure to deliver the change they promised and are turning to the Liberal Democrats as the party holding this government to account, from the family farm tax to winter fuel payment cuts.
Davey also also accused Kemi Badenoch of sneering at the Liberal Democrats as “the party that will fix your local church roof”, and said he was happy for his party to be seen like this.
Liberal Democrats get the job done. Kemi Badenoch may sneer at us for being the party that will fix your local church roof, but we will proudly wear that as a badge of honour. We are focused on fixing the local issues people care about, whether it’s fixing potholes, helping you see a GP or dentist, or cleaning up rivers polluted by filthy sewage.
Davey was referring to what Badenoch told Jordan Peterson in a podcast interview last month. She said:
A typical Liberal Democrat will be somebody who is good at fixing their church roof. And the people in the community like them, they are like ‘Fix the church roof, you should be a member of parliament’.
And they want to be nice. But, actually, they’ve got lots of very silly and foolish ideas, along with being able to fundraise for a local community. And then they have bad views on national security. For example, they don’t want us to keep maybe a nuclear deterrent. They have silly ideas about education. They don’t want people to go to prison. They want prisons closed down, ‘let’s just have restorative justice’ … If you’re not paying attention, you will think ‘that’s good, these are nice people, we should vote for them’, but actually they will destroy the whole country if you let them at it.
Home Office 'very open-minded' about whether offshore 'return hubs' might be good idea, minister says
Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, addressed the Organised Immigration Crime summit in a recorded video, and said she was happy to be supporting collaboration with the UK on the issue.
As PA Media reports, she said Italy’s approach with Albania to process claims offshore was first criticised but governments should not be afraid to imagine and build innovative solutions. Meloni said:
A model that was criticised at first, but that then has gained increasing consensus, so much so that today, European Union is proposing to set up return hubs in third countries.
This means that we were right and that the courage to lead the way has been rewarded.
In an interview on Times Radio this morning, asked if the government was considering using offshore “return hubs”, Angela Eagle, the border security and asylum minister, said:
We’re not ruling anything out if it works, so we’re looking at a range of things.
We’re also obviously looking to see what the European Commission is doing in Europe, we’re looking to see whether return hubs might be a good idea.
But at the moment, we’re not in a position to make any kind of announcements on that, but we are very open-minded to see what works.
In his speech at the summit, and also in his Daily Mail article, Keir Starmer used immigration policy to make a wider point about his approach to politics.
The last government’s Rwanda policy was a “gimmick”, he claimed. His approach was different, he said. Writing in the Mail, he explained:
I accept my approach is not glamorous but it’s how I do business: sleeves rolled up, getting the details right, doing the hard graft.
This plan is drawn on what I know works from my years of experience as our country’s chief prosecutor: that international co-operation is the foundation of securing Britain’s borders …
Me reeling off a list of actions isn’t what the British people are looking for. I know that. People want to know we will give them security – in their jobs, in their streets, in the promise of opportunities for their kids. I can promise we will.
It isn’t gimmicks – or more populism – that will solve this problem. It is practical government. That is the change this Labour government brings.
Kemi Badenoch also frequently describes politics in the same terms (as a split between gimmicks/presentation, and detail/planning/seriousness etc), and like Starmer she describes herself in the latter camp – but she and Starmer don’t agree on what counts as a gimmick.
Starmer claims he was 'shocked' by lack of coordination between police, Border Force and intelligence agencies
In his speech at the Organised Immigration Crime summit, Keir Starmer said that under the last government there was not enough coordination between the police, Border Force and the intelligence services. He said:
We inherited this total fragmentation between our policing, our Border Force and our intelligence agencies.
A fragmentation that made it crystal clear, when I looked at it, that there were gaps in our defence, an open invitation at our borders for the people smugglers to crack on.
To be honest, it should have been fixed years ago.
In his Daily Mail article, Starmer was even blunter.
We inherited the most extraordinary disconnect between policing, our Border Force and our intelligence agencies.
I was shocked. That’s why we’ve created our new £150 million Border Security Command, together with new powers and new criminal offences.
Updated
Simon Jones from BBC South East, who covers the small boat issue extensively, says on social media that, although Keir Starmer linked the latest removal numbers to potential Rwanda deportation numbers (see 9.26am), the comparision is not exact.
Labour says it’s returned 24,000 people who had no right to be here since it came to power - which it says would have taken the Rwanda scheme 80 years to achieve. (Note: Rwanda was not designed for the deportation of foreign-national offenders).
Enforced returns up 21% since general election, No 10 says, due to more staff being allocated for this
Downing Street has sent out more details of the enforced returns numbers quoted by Keir Starmer in his speech to the Organised Immigration Crime summit. (See 9.26am.)
It says the more than 24,000 migrants made to leave the country since July 2024 meant the government has achieved the highest rate of returns in eight years. It says:
The continued rise in removals includes a 21% increase in enforced returns and a 16% increase in foreign national offenders being removed from the UK since July 5, including the 4 biggest returns charter flights in the UK’s history, with a total of more than 850 people on board.
The massive surge in removals followed the government’s immediate action to redeploy staff across the Home Office to work on policies that deliver results …
Between 5 July and 22 March 2025 there were 24,103 returns, the highest 9 month period compared to any 9-month period since 2017. Prior to this from Jan – Sept 2017, returns were 25,225 …
Of total returns since 5 July 2024:
-there were 6,339 enforced returns of people with no legal right to remain in the UK
-3,594 were of foreign national offenders (FNOs)
-6,781 were asylum related returns
From 5 July 2024 to 22 March 2025 there have been 46 charter flights for returns to countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America
The full Home Office figures are here.
Starmer says the vessels used by people smugglers do not even deserve the name “boat”. They are so flimsy they are “not worthy of the name”. They are only produced for one purpose. He says law enforcement use to ignore this. But he says he has changed that, and now boats and engines are being seized, “driving up the costs for the smugglers”.
He says checks are also being increased to stop employers hiring illegal migrants.
None of these strategies is “a silver bullet”, he says.
But he says he does not want “gimmicks”. Instead this is “sleeves-rolled-up, practical government”, he says.
Starmer says 24,000 migrants have been removed from UK since Labour took office
Starmer says his government scrapped the Rwanda scheme. The last government had spent £700m on it, but just four volunteers had gone to Rwanda.
Even if the scheme had started working properly, only about 300 people a year would have gone to Rwanda.
He says, since Labour took office, more than 24,000 people with no right to be in the UK have been returned.
It would have taken the Rwanda scheme 80 years to reach that number, he claims.
He says this is the highest return rate for eight years, and it included four of the biggest return flights ever.
Starmer says, from his work as director of public prosecutions, he knows the importance of countries working together to tackle international crime.
And he says changes are already happening.
Take our work with France as a good example.
Now, previously their maritime doctrine prevented French law enforcement from responding to small boats in shallow waters. But now we’re working with them to change that.
And, under German law, it was not illegal to facilitate people smuggling to a country outside the EU. Now that is being changed too, so “Germany will be able to prosecute the criminal networks facilitating this vile trade”.
Starmer says, from the moment he took office, he said he would convene this meeting.
He recalls visiting a camp for asylum seekers outside Calais in 2016, when he had just been elected as an MP.
He recalls the mess, the freezing temperatures, and children there as young as five and seven – the age of his own children at the time.
That sort of misery and desperation remains, and “there’s nothing progressive or compassionate about turning a blind eye to it”, he says.
Starmer starts by saying Lancaster House, the venue for the conference, was where he hosted the recent international meeting of a “coalition of the willing” to discuss support for Ukraine.
He says countries have to work together to help Ukraine.
And the same is try of illegal immigration; the issue can only be tackled by countries cooperating, he says.
And he says people are right to be angry about this problem (echoing the point he made in his Daily Mail article – see 8.53am.)
Comments on the blog will open at 10am.
Starmer speaks at opening of Organised Immigration Crime summit
Keir Starmer is about to speak at the opening of the Organised Immigration Crime (OIC) summit.
There is a live feed at the top of the blog.
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Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has been welcoming the representatives from 40 countries attending today’s Organised Immigration Crime (OIC) summit in London. Here she is greeting one of the attendees, Lithuania’s interior minister, Vladislav Kondratovic.
Keir Starmer says Britons 'right' to be 'angry about illegal migration' ahead of summit on immigration crime
Good morning. Keir Starmer is opening a big international summit in London this morning which shows, according to Downing Street, that Britian is “spearheading the toughest ever international crackdown on organised immigration crime”. Here is the news release from No 10 and here is Kiran Stacey’s overnight preview story.
To coincide with the event, Starmer has written an article for the Daily Mail summing up his approach to illegal immigration. He starts by saying people are right to be angry about the problem.
I know many of you are angry about illegal migration. You’re right to be. British people are compassionate and fair-minded.
But we all pay the price for insecure borders – from the cost of accommodating migrants to the strain on our public services. It is a basic question of fairness.
And don’t think for one moment that it’s a good outcome for illegal migrants either. So many of these desperate people are the victims of appalling exploitation.
So, believe me: I get it. Which is why at the heart of our promise of change, is a promise to restore your security.
I will post more from the article, and from the summit, shortly.
While Starmer may be focused on illegal immigration this morning, his main concern this week will relate to what President Trump will do on Wednesday, when he is set to announce sweeping global tariffs. These are likely to include Britain and, even if they don’t, they are almost certain to send shockwaves through the world economy that will have more impact on the UK than anything in the spring statement last week. Starmer is still looking for a carve-out, and we have the latest on that here.
And today we should also learn more about the plans to pass emergency legislation this will allowing the government to cancel the Sentencing Council guidelines saying judges should normally get pre-sentence reports before they sentence people from ethnic, cultural or faith minorities. The government agrees with Tory claims that this amounts to two-tier justice.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: Keir Starmer speaks at the opening of the international Organised Immigration Crime (OIC) summit. Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, is also speaking.
10am: Ed Davey launches the Liberal Democrats’ local elections campaign.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2.30pm: Cooper takes questions in the Commons.
And at some point today Starmer will host a roundtable in Downing Street, attended by some of the producers of the Adolescence Netflix drama, to discuss misogyny and the radicalistion of boys online.
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