Keir Starmer to present Labor plan to tackle small boat crossings

Sir Keir Starmer will vow to make Britain’s coasts “hostile territory for people smuggling gangs” as he sets out details of Labor plans to tackle small boat crossings.

The Labor leader will promise to set up a new Border Security Command to combat people smugglers if his party comes to power.

The new unit would be funded by diverting £75m from the Rwanda plan.

Sir Keir will unveil the plans in a speech in Dover on Friday.

His constituency is the arrival point for many people making the dangerous journey across the English Channel.

The government says its plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda would deter people from crossing.

No deportation flights have taken off yet because the plan has been delayed by legal challenges, but the government now expects the first flights to be in July.

However, in his speech, Sir Keir will argue that the Rwanda plan cannot be an effective deterrent, as only a small proportion of people arriving in small boats will be sent there.

The Labor leader will accuse the Conservatives of “a Travelodge amnesty” by failing to process asylum claims and putting people up in hotels.

He is expected to say his party will “replace tricks with bribes.”

The Labor Party has already promised to abandon the Rwanda plan if it wins the next election and has confirmed it will consider asylum claims from people who have arrived in the UK in small boats.

The party said £75m of the money allocated for the first year of the scheme would fund its plans.

It has also committed to hiring hundreds more specialized investigators and cross-border police.

Meanwhile, counter-terrorism powers would be expanded to cover organized immigration crime, including the power to register people suspected of being involved in people smuggling, close bank accounts, restrict their travel and track their movements before any crime has been committed. a crime.

The new Border Security Command would be modeled on the Office of Security and Counterterrorism created by the last Labor government and would bring together the National Crime Agency, the Immigration Enforcement Service, the CPS and MI5.

It would be headed by a former police, army or intelligence chief who would report directly to the Home Secretary.

But the Conservatives claimed Labour’s big idea was what they described as an “amnesty for illegal immigrants”.

Home Secretary James Cleverly accused Sir Keir of not wanting to control Britain’s borders and wanting to scrap the government’s Rwanda plan “even if it is working”.

More than 6,200 people have crossed the English Channel in small boats so far this year, an increase of almost a quarter compared to the same period last year.