Tories have 'lost control of UK borders' as migrants flock over the Channel
Tory ministers have lost control of Britain’s borders, with people traffickers deciding who comes to the UK, Keir Starmer warned today.
The Labour leader, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, called for MI5 and European spy agencies to share real-time intelligence in a bid to tackle people-smuggling gangs, in the same way security chiefs work together to thwart terrorist attacks. Pointing to his five years leading the Crown Prosecution Service, Mr Starmer said he had “seen for myself how those operations work in relation to terrorism very, very effectively”.
“At the moment, we don’t treat serious organised immigration offences in the same way,” he told Sky News. “When it came to counter-terrorism, what we were able to do very effectively was to share intelligence in real-time, to agree between the lead countries where the investigation would take place, where we would smash the - in that case - terrorist gangs and bring them to justice. I believe that if we put international, organised immigration crime into that same bracket, we could run the same operation.”
He said small inflatable boats migrants use to cross the Strait of Dover - the world’s busiest shipping lane with 500 vessels a day - “are being effectively made to order” then moved across the Continent ready for attempted voyages to UK shores. “We know they’re being stored in Europe and then brought to the north coast of France,” he said. “It must be possible if we get the right operation in place to smash that operation.”
Speaking after visiting The Hague last week for talks with European police agency Europol, Mr Starmer accused the Conservatives of offering “rhetoric and gimmicks but no solutions”, insisting: “What I’m focusing on is how we are actually going to deal with this.” The number of migrants crossing the Channel has soared in recent years. Last year, 45,755 migrants arrived in Britain after crossing the Dover Strait in small boats. In 2021 it was 28,526 and the previous year it was 8,404. So far this year, 23,731 have reached Britain via the perilous route - piling pressure on local councils tasked with accommodating asylum seekers and adding to the backlog of applications.
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Accusing the Tories of surrendering control of Britain’s frontiers to smuggling gangs, Mr Starmer went on: “There’s a general sense in the public that the Government has lost control of the borders and that most basic of government features - which is the Government ought to be the one that decides who comes to the country - has been lost by this Government, and now it’s the criminal gangs that are running the vile trade of putting people into small boats across the Channel who are deciding who comes to the UK.”
Mr Starmer also rejected Tory claims Labour would sign-up to a returns deal with the EU which, the Conservatives claimed, would mean 100,000 migrants coming to the UK.
"Let me be absolutely crystal clear about this - because the Government has been pumping out complete garbage this week in terms of the numbers that they are suggesting - there is obviously an EU quota system for EU members; well, it's obvious we are not an EU member,” he said. “We will not be part of that. We are not an EU member. This is why what the Government's saying, it's been complete garbage.”
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