Keir: I’ll stop jets to Rwanda on Day One

But he won’t commit to reducing small boats to zero

SIR KEIR Starmer yesterday vowed to halt migrant flights to Rwanda immediately if he wins the keys to No 10.

Branding the removal scheme a ‘gimmick’, the Labour leader said he would scrap it ‘straight away’ – with no planes taking off after the general election.

But he refused to commit to a deadline for reducing small boat crossings to zero, saying he would not pledge ‘false numbers’ in a swipe at Rishi Sunak’s pledge to ‘stop the boats’.

Instead, Sir Keir said he wanted to reduce Channel crossings ‘materially’ and would ‘like’ the number to ‘come down completely’. He made the comments following a speech yesterday in Deal, Kent, where he outlined his plan to ‘smash’ the criminal smuggling gangs and halt crossings.

Sir Keir said a new ‘Border Security Command’ would make Britain’s shores a ‘hostile territory’ for smugglers. He insisted his plan for the new body was the ‘most effective deterrent’

‘Asylum capital of the world’

because it would stop people crossing the Channel, rather than sending those who have already arrived to Rwanda.

‘Stopping the gangs getting people in boats is the most effective deterrent because you can’t actually make the crossing to get here,’ said Sir Keir.

He said he would ‘get rid’ of the Rwanda plan ‘straight away’, and later told Sky News that meant ‘no flights scheduled or taking off after [the] general election if Labour wins’.

Sir Keir was flanked by Dover MP Natalie Elphicke, who defected to Labour on Wednesday. She told the audience of party supporters that Mr Sunak had ‘failed to keep our borders secure’, and said Labour would provide ‘a fresh approach’ to the issue.

Labour’s planned ‘ Border Security Command’ will bring together MI5, the National Crime Agency, Immigration Enforcement and the Crown Prosecution Service.

It will be bolstered by new counter terror powers, and be led by a Border Security Commander – a former police, military or intelligence chief. Labour also said it would hire hundreds of specialist investigators, intelligence agents and cross-border police officers to work across the UK and Europe to protect the border.

Sir Keir added: ‘ This is about leveraging the power and potential of dynamic government, based on a counter-terrorism approach which we know works.

‘An end to the fragmentation between policing, the border force and our intelligence agencies, a collective raising of standards, so that border protection becomes an elite force, not a Cinderella service...’ But Home Secretary James Cleverly last night said Labour ‘would make the UK the asylum capital of the world’, adding: ‘Labour have an illegal immigration amnesty, Labour blocked the deportation of violent sexual offenders and Labour voted over 130 times against tougher legislation to stop the boats.’

▪ Officials last night denied reports the first Rwanda flight could take place as early as June 24. Information from Government lawyers which emerged as part of a legal challenge against the plan said it was the ‘earliest possible date for the first removals’.

But sources said the reference to the ‘earliest possible date’ was misleading, and the first flight is still likely to leave in mid- July.