Sir Keir Starmer has said he is “angry” at the number of migrants crossing the English Channel as he revealed deportations under Labour have topped 24,000 since the general election.
The prime minister said “ordinary working people pay the price” of illegal migration, through strained public services and taxpayer-funded hotel places, calling for “decisive action” to deal with the issue.
Addressing a summit of leaders from 40 countries around the world aimed at tackling organised immigration crime, Sir Keir said returns under Labour were running at their fastest for eight years.
And, lashing out at the Conservatives’ Rwanda plan, he said Labour’s 24,000 returns would have taken 80 years under the deportation scheme pursued by Rishi Sunak.
At the immigration crime summit, Sir Keir called for countries to pursue smuggling gangs like terrorists, unveiling £33m of funding for foreign prosecutors to hunt down smugglers around the world – mirroring the approach he used to combat Islamist terrorism as leader of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
And, in an appeal to voters frustrated at the continuing flow of migrants across the Channel in small boats, Sir Keir said: “That makes people angry… it makes me angry, frankly.”
The PM said: “It’s unfair on ordinary working people who pay the price from the cost of hotels to our public services, struggling under the strain, and it’s unfair on the illegal migrants themselves, because these are vulnerable people being ruthlessly exploited by vile gangs.”
The summit comes as the PM faces mounting pressure over small boats, with a record 6,642 migrants having crossed the Channel in 119 boats this year, a 43 per cent jump from this time last year.
And while Sir Keir said each country must take its own “decisive action” to deal with the problem, he told the gathered countries “we can only smash these gangs once and for all if we work together”.
Enver Solomon, chief executive of charity the Refugee Council, welcomed the PM’s efforts to work with other countries to “tackle the vicious smuggling gangs”.
But he said enforcement strategies alone “will never work”, and said “nor will criminalising men, women and children who have fled conflicts”.
“When a refugee is clambering into a boat with an armed criminal threatening them, they are not thinking about UK laws but are simply trying to stay alive,” he warned.
Mr Solomon said a properly reformed asylum system would offer safe and legal routes to seek asylum in Britain, while quickly determining who is a refugee and who has no right to stay when migrants arrive in the UK.
Steve Smith, CEO of refugee charity Care4Calais, said the government should “offer safe routes for refugees to claim asylum in their countries”, saying that this was “a solution so simple, effective and low cost it shouldn’t take an international summit for these ‘expert’ delegates to come up with”.
Natasha Tsangarides, from Freedom from Torture, said that summit was a “wasted opportunity to do what is really needed”. She said that “criminalising refugees won’t stop people putting their own lives at risk to seek safety on our shores.”
The PM sought on Monday to paint his illegal migration crackdown as a compassionate and progressive approach to the issue. He warned there is “nothing compassionate about turning a blind eye” to the “evil of the people smuggling businesses”.
There were 24,103 returns between 5 July and 22 March, the highest period of any nine-month period since 2017. The figures came as Labour saw a 21 per cent increase in enforced returns and a 16 per cent jump in the number of foreign national offenders being removed from the UK.
The government has also carried out the four biggest chartered return flights in UK history, with a total of more than 850 people on board.
