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People-smugglers should be treated like terrorists, Keir Starmer will say on Monday, as he hosts an international summit on organised migration crime in London.
Starmer will urge representatives from more than 40 countries to cooperate across national borders to stop smugglers just as they did to stop terrorists when he was director of public prosecutions more than a decade ago.
The summit is the latest initiative in the government’s attempts to cut irregular migration by targeting organised crime. So far, however, the strategy has not paid off, with more people having crossed the Channel in small boats this year than had done so by this point in the previous three.
Starmer will say: “When I was the director of public prosecutions, we worked across borders throughout Europe and beyond to foil numerous plots, saving thousands of lives in the process. We prevented planes from being blown up over the Atlantic and brought the perpetrators to justice.
“I believe we should treat organised immigration crime in the same way.”
He will add: “I simply do not believe organised immigration crime cannot be tackled. We’ve got to combine our resources, share intelligence and tactics, and tackle the problem upstream at every step of the people smuggling routes.”
Ministers will mark the opening of the summit with a range of new policy measures, including £30m to tackle global trafficking routes and the flows of illicit money which fund them. A further £3m will go to the Crown Prosecution Service to help it expand its international work.
Officials from a number of countries will attend, including the US, Vietnam, Iraq and France. Meta and TikTok will also be there to talk about how to stop the online promotion of people smuggling.
Yvette Cooper said on Sunday the government would also change employment laws so companies can be punished for employing someone without the necessary visa even if they do so as a contractor rather than as staff.
The home secretary is targeting businesses such as restaurants, takeaways, barbers and beauty parlours, which often use irregular workers without checking their immigration status.
She added that the government is also considering the application of article eight of the Human Rights Act, which protects the right to a family life and is often used by migrants to argue they should be allowed to stay in the UK.
Cooper told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday: “We are reviewing this area to make sure that the immigration and asylum system works effectively in the way that parliament intended it to and make sure that there is a proper sense of control in the system.”
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Starmer and Cooper scrapped the previous government’s Rwanda plan soon after coming to power last year and focused instead on cross-border action to tackle people smugglers.
Officials say the approach is working, highlighting a series of recent arrests of people they describe as “smuggling kingpins”. Three men were recently convicted in Belgium for being involved in people smuggling, for example, after being arrested in the UK.
The number of small boat crossings continues to rise, however. More than 5,000 people have made the crossing so far this year – a threshold which was met faster than in any year on record.
Cooper in part blamed the weather for the high number of crossings, saying on Sunday: “We cannot carry on with border security being so dependent on the number of calm days that happen in the Channel.
“But the reason that is happening is because the criminal gangs still have a deep hold.”
