Sir Keir Starmer made the comments about smashing smuggling gangs while flying to the G20 Summit in (Image: Getty Images)
Labour’s “desperate” bid to pay other countries to help end the Channel migrant crisis will fail, critics declared last night.
The Prime Minister opened the door to copying Italian premier Giorgia Meloni by paying countries to beat trafficking gangs and signing more returns agreements.
Sir Keir Starmer said on Sunday that preventing migrants from leaving their home countries is the “right thing” to do.
The Home Office wants to strike new deals with Vietnam, Kurdistan and Turkey to snare more people smugglers and incentivise people to remain at home.
Kurdish gangs are feared to have “monopolised” the smuggling routes across Europe to the UK.
But Robert Bates, research director at the Centre for Migration Control, said: “This plan would be an expensive shakedown.
“Labour plans to throw hundreds of millions at governments on the other side of the world in the desperate hope that they will bail Starmer and Cooper out of the mess they have got themselves into. It won’t work and is throwing good money after bad.
“The escalating small boat crisis is a problem of our own making. Scrapping any semblance of a deterrent has made us the soft touch of the West.
“These endless talks are a sideshow, the only solution is a strong commitment to return every illegal migrant to their country of origin or, failing that, a third country like Rwanda.”
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is in discussion with a number of governments, including those of Kurdistan in Iraq, Turkey and Vietnam, with “co-operation and security” deals expected to be concluded by the end of the year.
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The move would effectively mirror that brought in by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Arrivals in Italy have fallen by 62%, figures from the country’s Interior Ministry show.
The EU has paid Tunisia £88m to bolster border security and train its coastguard, while Italy has paid for patrol vessels given its Government another £83m to support business, invest in education and renewable energy.
Italy has also trained the Libyan coastguard and signed a gas deal.
The approach is intended to offer incentives to residents to remain in the country as well as deterrents to stop them leaving
Many of the smuggling gang kingpins are believed to operate from Kurdistan.
Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch, said: “This smacks of government spin with no substance.
“The underlying message for me is that the PM and his Home Secretary have given up on ‘smashing the gangs’.
“A deal with Kurdistan makes no sense; what will our courts say about failed asylum seekers appealing against being returned to ‘a semi autonomous region of Iraq’?
“While the plan with Vietnam is essentially to spend a lot of money on dissuading its nationals from setting out in the first place.
“The futility of this tactic has been shown time and again.
“The truth is, the Government has come up against the brick wall of reality and has reverted to smoke and mirrors.
“The boats will keep coming until our laws allow for detention, swift processing and removal of those coming illegally.”
More than 1,000 people attempted to cross the English Channel in small boats in the last week, official figures show.
There were 1,018 on 17 boats who attempted the journey without permission to enter the UK in the week to November 15, figures from the Home Office and Border Force say.
According to the Home Office, 425 people arrived on Saturday in nine boats.
The total for the past seven days was 871 people.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said prevention deals are a “constructive step” but would not work without a deterrent, as he defended the previous government’s Rwanda deportation scheme.
He said: “(The Government) are not proposing, as far as I can see, to have a returns agreement with those countries. They’re proposing to work with those countries to prevent departures in the first place.
“Now that’s all well and good. I’m perfectly happy to support that, but it’s not going to work as a deterrent.
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“To deter people, they need to know that if they illegally and dangerously cross the English Channel, they’re going to be immediately removed somewhere else.
“And that’s what Rwanda did. These deals don’t do that.”
He added: “The Rwanda scheme never actually started. It was due to start on the 24 July and it would have saved us a lot of money had it been started, because the deterrent would have stopped people crossing the English Channel. We know that because it worked in Australia.”
Kurdish smuggling gangs are feared to have “monopolised” the smuggling routes across Europe to the UK.
Travelling on the plane to Brazil for the G20 Summit, the Prime Minister said: “I am absolutely clear in my mind that taking down the gangs is the single most effective way of stopping the boats going across the Channel.
“People are making a huge amount of money for the journeys people are making across obviously several countries to the north coast of France.
“Intercepting and taking those gangs down is hugely important and it will be one of the biggest disincentives if we can break the gangs that are running these.
“I have seen it for myself. I have never accepted the argument that somehow there is this one gang or gangs that can’t be taken down.”
Pressed over reports his Government is considering paying millions to stop migrants leaving in the first place, he said: “Bearing down on the gangs is really important and that’s why I was very pleased to see the arrest on Thursday.
“Anything else we can do to stop people leaving in the first place is the right thing, whatever point of impact and then obviously the returns are very important when people do get here, that’s why I am pleased a large number of people have been returned.”
The Daily Express understands the Prime Minister was referring to better training for border security personnel during the migrant’s entire journey, tackling the root drivers of migration and joint communication campaigns.
Many of the smuggling gang kingpins are believed to operate from Kurdistan.
A source said: “The assessment made after that trip was that Kurdistani nationals monopolise every part of the journey made by small boat migrants, from the procuring of the craft to putting people on the boats on the beaches in France.”
It is understood that each of the deals struck with the different countries will be bespoke and could include a returns deal, similar to the one agreed by Robert Jenrick, the former Tory immigration minister, with Albania.
Sir Keir added: “We have done a lot of work on returns since we have come into government.
“Obviously a lot of my time and focus has been taking down the gangs in the first place, and that is why I have been in discussion with Macron, with Scholz, Meloni in Italy about this at that level and why I have been pressing hard on law enforcement and why I was very pleased to see the arrest we saw on Thursday in relation to the Turkish individual – that is a very significant arrest in my opinion and I was very pleased that the NCA were playing such a crucial part in that particular operation.
“So my focus is on stopping the arrivals in the first place which is taking down the gangs. Of course, we have got to get the returns sorted out as well.
Asked if he was in talks with Turkey, Vietnam and Kurdistan over a returns agreement, Sir Keir said: “I am not going to go into the details of any arrangements.”
“I don’t think this is an area where we should just do one thing.“We have got to do everything that we can.”
