Starmer to lay out plan to tackle small boats

LABOUR will use new counterterrorism powers to tackle people-smuggling gangs bringing migrants across the Channel in small boats, Sir Keir Starmer is set to announce today.

In a speech on the Kent coast, the Labour leader will set out his party’s plans to tackle the small boats crisis if it wins the general election. Sir Keir is expected to say Labour will “replace gimmicks with graft”, scrapping the Government’s Rwanda scheme and using some of the money saved to fund a new “elite Border Security Command” led by a former police, military or intelligence chief.

Attacking the Government’s approach as “rank incompetence”, he is expected to dismiss the Rwanda scheme as being unable to provide an effective deterrent.

Sir Keir will also stress his experience as the former head of the Crown Prosecution Service and pledge to make Britain “hostile territory” for people smugglers.

He will say: “Let’s be clear at the start, these are criminal enterprises we are dealing with.

“A business that pits nation against nation, thrives in the grey areas of our rules, the cracks between our institutions, where, they believe, they can exploit some of the most vulnerable people in the world with impunity.

“It’s a vile trade that preys on the desperation and hope it finds in its victims.”

Among the measures set to be proposed by Sir Keir are new border control stop and searches, building on powers created in 2000 by the Terrorism Act, along with new financial investigation powers and search and seizure warrants targeting organised immigration crime.

The new Border Security Command would bring together agencies including the National Crime Agency, Immigration Enforcement and MI5, while Labour will also pledge to hire hundreds of specialist investigators to work across the UK and Europe to tackle people smuggling.