EPAPeople smugglers have exploited “fragmented” policing, border force and intelligence agencies to smuggle thousands of illegal migrants into the UK, the prime minister has said.
Sir Keir Starmer said poor organisation had meant the UK was “a soft touch” on illegal migration, which smugglers took as an “open invitation”.
The prime minister made the case for tackling illegal migration like terrorism as he spoke at the first ever Organised Immigration Crime Summit in London – attended by more than 40 countries alongside tech giants like Meta, X and TikTok.
The Conservatives said the conference “will make no difference” and only Rwanda-style deportations would stop illegal migration.
Sir Keir is keen for the UK to be seen as leading the global response to illegal migration – a key issue for the government politically, with both the Conservatives and Reform UK accusing Labour of failing to get a grip on the issue.
Since winning the election in 2024, Sir Keir has pushed for treating illegal migration like terrorism, with increased cooperation across countries and enhanced police powers.
The government has announced a series of agreements with other countries in an effort to tackle the number of illegal migrants entering the UK.
But more than 6,000 people have crossed the Channel so far in 2025, making it a record start to a year for small boat arrivals.
Sir Keir said joint cross-border criminal investigations involving UK authorities were “beginning to bear fruit”.
Since July, the government said more than 24,000 individuals with no right to be in the UK had been deported.
Launching a two-day summit at Lancaster House, the prime minister said he was “angry” about the scale of illegal migration.
“It makes me angry, frankly, because it’s unfair on ordinary working people who pay the price – from the cost of hotels, to our public services struggling under the strain,” he said.
Illegal migration was also “a massive driver of global insecurity” which “undermines our ability to control who comes here”, Sir Keir said.
“And it’s unfair on the illegal migrants themselves, because these are vulnerable people being ruthlessly exploited by vile gangs.”
Officials from Vietnam, Albania and Iraq – countries from which many migrants have travelled to the UK – attended the summit at London’s Lancaster House, alongside French, Chinese and US representatives.
Representatives from social media companies Meta, X and TikTok also joined, alongside Kurdish leaders and Interpol to take part in discussions on how to disrupt a criminal trade worth an estimated $10bn (£7.7bn) a year.
Sir Keir told attendees: “There has never been a bigger gathering of people on this issue, building a truly international effort to defeat organised immigration crime.”
Labour campaigned on a promise to scrap the previous government’s plan to send some migrants to Rwanda.
On Monday, Sir Keir blamed the Conservatives for pursuing the scheme, while smugglers slipped through the cracks in services.
“We inherited this total fragmentation between our policing, our Border Force and our intelligence agencies,” Sir Keir said.
“A fragmentation that made it crystal clear, when I looked at it, that there were gaps in our defence, an open invitation at our borders for the people smugglers to crack on.
“To be honest, it should have been fixed years ago.”
Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said Sir Keir’s immigration plans “already lie in tatters”.
He said: “We are about to see 30,000 illegal channel crossings since the election reached this week, a 31% increase.
“This year so far has been the worst on record.”
The spike in channel crossings was “a direct consequence of the government cancelling the Rwanda deterrent before it even started,” Philp said.
“Today’s conference will make no difference,” he added.
“Law enforcement alone cannot stop illegal immigration – you need a removals deterrent.”
Ahead of the summit, the Home Office announced that £33m would be spent to disrupt people-smuggling networks and boost prosecutions.
Among developments aimed at tackling illegal migration ahead of the gathering:
- £30m of funding for the Border Security Command will be used to tackle supply chains, finance and trafficking routes across Europe, the Balkans, Asia and Africa. A further £3m will help the Crown Prosecution Service increase its ability to deal with cases, the government said
- The government is expanding right-to-work checks to cover gig economy workers by making amendments to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
- Home Secretary Yvette Cooper signalled she wanted to crack down on the number of people who had arrived in the UK on a student or work visa and had gone on to claim asylum
- The government is reviewing how Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the right to family life, applies to migration cases, Cooper said
- Some £1m in UK funding will go towards strengthened efforts to root out people-smuggling kingpins in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, the Home Office announced
- The UK has launched an advertising campaign on Vietnamese social media and messenger app Zalo, warning people about trusting people-smuggling gangs.
On Sunday, Tory shadow minister Alex Burghart told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme that Labour should never have scrapped the Rwanda deportation plan.
