What is Starmer's £33m plan to smash 'vile' Channel migration gangs?

The government has announced a £33 million plan to smash the "vile people-smuggling gangs" behind unauthorised migration.

The policy was announced by the Home Office ahead of a landmark summit in the UK today, where more than 40 countries are discussing ways to tackle illegal immigration.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday ahead of the summit, Keir Starmer said he was "shocked" by the "most extraordinary disconnect" between policing, Border Force and intelligence agencies. He pledged to adopt the counter-terrorism approach he used while leading the Crown Prosecution Service to dismantle organised smuggling operations.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Most of the money, £30 million, will support the newly established Border Security Command to target supply chains, financial networks and trafficking routes spanning Europe, the Balkans, Asia and Africa, said the government. An additional £3 million will bolster the CPS' capacity to handle smuggling cases.

What did the commentators say?

Immigration is a "key issue" for this government, with both the Conservatives and Reform UK "accusing Labour of failing to get a grip" on it, said the BBC.

Starmer is keen for the UK to be seen as leading the global response to "irregular immigration" into the UK, especially through small boat crossings, but with more than 6,000 people crossing the Channel so far in 2025, it is already "a record start to a year".

The PM and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper have highlighted the "deep complexities" involved in "interrupting supply chains, financial sanctions on gangs" and "blocking social media content advertising routes to the UK", said Sky News. But with public patience "wearing dangerously thin" on this issue after "endless promises" from the Tories and Labour, the PM will be aware he has "very little time to persuade the public he can deliver". Yet if Starmer can succeed in reducing the number of small boat crossings before the next general election, the creeping electoral danger posed by Reform UK "may not prove to be as lethal" as first thought.

The government's plans are not enough, said The Telegraph in an editorial. "Tighter borders, international agreements and the rest were all tried by the last government." Labour's promises to do the same things but "better" look "threadbare".

The government has said what matters in tackling the gangs is "practical things not gimmicks" – a reference to the Tories' now-abandoned Rwanda deportation scheme. Yet, "until people prepared to make a perilous crossing know they face swift deportation or removal to another country what is there to stop them?"

What next?

Ministers hope small boat crossings will decrease with the deployment of a UK-funded specialist policing unit off the French coast, said The Times.

But there are fears that migrants are "increasingly using the UK’s visa system as a back door to claiming asylum". Last year, 40,000 asylum claims came from visa holders; more than the 35,000 from small boat arrivals. Of these, 40% were on study visas, 29% on work visas, 24% on visitor visas, while 7% of claims came from people with other forms of leave.

The government will also be expanding right-to-work checks to cover gig economy workers by making amendments to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. Businesses that do not carry out the checks could be fined up to £60,000, or face closures, director disqualifications and up to five years in prison for those responsible.