Starmer will use terror laws to tackle migrant crossings with Europe

Sir Keir Starmer will vow on Friday to use terror laws to tackle the small boats crisis, as part of plans to work more closely with Europe to combat people smugglers.

The Labour leader will announce plans to scrap the Rwanda scheme and use the money to create a border security command with new powers to treat people smugglers like terrorists.

He will use a speech in the Dover constituency of Natalie Elphicke, the Tory MP who defected to Labour on Wednesday, to argue for greater European cooperation on immigration and to try to counter Conservative claims that Labour has no plan to stop the boats.

His proposals have been backed by Neil Basu, the former Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner and the head of UK counter terrorism policing from 2018 to 2021, who advised Labour on the plan.

In an article in The Telegraph today, the former Met assistant commissioner claimed the proposals could make a “huge difference” as he branded  the Government’s Rwanda scheme a “grossly expensive” gamble with taxpayers’ money without any evidence that it would work.

Sir Keir will say: “We should be working with our European partners to seize those boats and seize material here in the UK to collect further evidence. We should turn every stone and use every reasonable power. That is my message to the smugglers: these shores will become hostile territory for you.”

The announcement on immigration will be seen as an attempt to seize the initiative on a difficult policy area for the party as Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, seeks to get the first migrant flights off to Rwanda in July. Last week, Labour said it would consider the asylum claims of more than 90,000 migrants who entered the UK illegally if it won the election.

Labour said the new border security command, headed by a former police, military or intelligence chief, would work with international agencies to smash the trafficking gangs and put Britain’s police at the heart of pan-European efforts to counter people smuggling. The announcement comes after speculation that Labour wants to rebuild closer ties with the EU

The centre would be modelled on the Office for Security and Counter-terrorism set up by the last Labour government to overhaul the approach to national security.

It would be supported by up to 1,000 additional officers recruited by MI5, the National Crime Agency (NCA), Border Force and police – paid for by £75 million a year that would have been spent on sending migrants to Rwanda. Recruitment, including for the commander, would start within weeks of a Labour election victory.

Officers would get expanded powers under the 2000 Terrorism Act for enhanced stop and search powers for organised immigration crime, enabling them to carry out personal searches, examine and seize mobile phones and copy any data on the devices.

Like terrorism police, officers could get warrants to search suspected people smugglers’ premises and seize items before an offence was committed and apply to courts for early access to financial information on suspects.

They could also use serious crime prevention orders to restrict access to the internet, banking and travel of suspected people smugglers before they were convicted.

Starmer urges the rejection of ‘performative symbols’

Sir Keir will acknowledge that rebuilding the asylum system will be a “trial of leadership to resist the voices who fundamentally do not want to rebuild a functioning asylum system”.

Sources suggested he was referring to those both on the Left seeking to restore open borders and those on the Right wanting to bar illegal migrants from claiming asylum.

“It’s become a question of whether you can prioritise, at all times, the politics of practical solutions, and reject the politics of performative symbols – the gimmicks and gestures,” he will say.

Some 8,826 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel so far this year, according to Home Office figures. This is up 32 per cent on this time last year, when 6,691 migrants were recorded, and a 14 per cent rise compared with the same period in 2022.

Sir Keir will say: “It is my firm belief, after years of experience in this area, that we need new and stronger powers to enforce the law and bring these smugglers to justice. Powers that in some areas, counter-terrorism most obviously, we have enhanced in recognition of the dangers posed to our security.

“It’s not hard to see why the Prime Minister might want a path to deterrence without the hard graft, the boring graft maybe, of fixing the wider system. But I’m afraid, like so much of what he says these days, it’s sticking plasters. Gimmicks, not serious government.”

Referring to the Government’s plan to deport migrants arriving illegally to Rwanda, he said: “Let me spell it out again. A scheme that will only remove 1 per cent of small boat crossings a year can not, and never will be, an effective deterrent. It’s an insult to anyone’s intelligence, and the gangs that run this sick trade are not easily fooled.”

A Tory source said: “Labour voted over a hundred times against the Government to give us more powers to tackle this global challenge and has no replacement, no deterrent, no safe third destination and true to form will stop the Rwanda partnership ‘even if it works’.”

The source added: “Starmer’s ‘new plan’ is his old plan, which is no plan.”

Basu criticised Braverman’s immigration stance

It is not the first time that Labour has recruited a police chief to help devise its policies. Lord Stevens, a former Met Police commissioner, chaired a commission set up by Labour in 2011 to draw up proposals for neighbourhood policing.

Steve Otter, the former Devon and Cornwall chief constable, was a member of an expert Labour commission under Dame Vera Baird, the former victims’ commissioner, which was tasked with drawing up reforms to increase the number of crimes solved. It reported its recommendations earlier this year.

Mr Basu was approached by Labour to advise on the immigration plans because of his counter terror experience. He retired from the Met in 2022 after controversially being overlooked for the job of head of the National Crime Agency.

As one of the most senior police officers of Asian heritage, he has spoken out on race issues and criticised Suella Braverman for her language on immigration as home secretary.

“It is unbelievable to hear a succession of very powerful politicians who look like this talking in language that my father would have remembered from the 1968. It’s horrific,” he said.

Ms Elphicke is expected to join Sir Keir at the speech in Dover. She accused Mr Sunak of failing to deliver on his promise to stop the boats when she defected on Wednesday.

Her defection was greeted with surprise by Conservatives, with Lord Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, saying it showed Labour stood for nothing and Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, saying she was a “very odd fit” for the Opposition.