Keir Starmer announces border security boost to ‘smash’ people smuggling gangs

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced an additional £75m for border security as he vowed to stamp out the “vile trade” of people smuggling.

Speaking at the INTERPOL General Assembly in Glasgow, the prime minister said the UK was “resetting” its approach to the issue of people smuggling, pledging to increase international collaboration to help meet the challenge.

The Labour government scrapped the previous government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, calling it a “gimmick”.

Starmer told delegates at the conference in the SEC that an effective collaboration to tackle people smuggling would be just as significant as the deal agreed when Glasgow hosted COP26 at the same venue in 2021.

He said: “It is your leadership today which can help make a decisive breakthrough in this vile trade in human life.

“If together, we can win this war against the people smugglers, then this gathering will have achieved a victory for humanity every bit as significant as the Glasgow climate pact because you will have helped to smash the gangs, secure our borders and save countless lives.”

The prime minister said the additional £75m would bring investment in the Border Security Command over the next two years to £150m. The money will help fund additional specialist investigators and surveillance equipment.

The Border Security Command will also be provided with enhanced powers – through a new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill – to tackle organised immigration crime whilst providing for strong and effective border security. 

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said:  “Criminal smuggler gangs profit from undermining our border security and putting lives at risk and they have been getting away with it for far too long.

“Our new Border Security Command, with the investment set out today, will mean a huge step change in the way we target these criminal gangs. People smugglers and traffickers operate in networks across borders, that’s why we have launched a major boost to our cooperation with international partners including other European countries, the G7 and Europol, and why we are so pleased to be hosting the INTERPOL conference on tackling international crime in Glasgow today.”

National Crime Agency Director General Graeme Biggar said: “Tackling organised crime, and especially immigration crime, remains a top priority for the NCA. We are currently leading around 70 investigations into the gangs or individuals involved in the highest echelons of this type of criminality, and we are devoting more resources to it than ever before.

“We are determined to do all we can to disrupt and dismantle these networks, wherever they operate.”