More migrants have been removed from the UK since Labour was elected than in any other six-month period over the past five years, the government has claimed.
The Home Office announced today that almost 13,460 people had been removed since Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won by a landslide in July.
It claimed the government was “on track” to deliver on its pledge to return more people who do not have a right to stay in the UK halfway through their first year in office than any other six-month period since 2018. The goal would need to be met by early January.
But while Home Secretary Yvette Cooper claims her party had “intensified” border security measures since being elected, some 21,306 migrants have arrived by small boat since 5 July – the day after Labour was voted in.
On Thursday alone, there were 609 arrivals, making it the busiest December day for crossings on record.
Some 34,880 people have arrived in the UK on small boats so far this year, up 20% on this time last year but down 22% on 2022.
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The Conservatives highlighted the number of Channel crossings is higher than the same period last year, saying Sir Keir and Ms Cooper were “failing to control our borders and should hang their heads in shame”.
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Ms Cooper, who visited Rome yesterday for talks with her Italian counterpart on people-smuggling, pledged a crackdown on “exploitative” illegal working to address “the promise of illegal jobs that are used by criminal smuggling gangs to sell spaces in small boats”.
Political correspondent
We don’t usually get quite so much information about the home secretary’s bilateral meetings with any foreign counterparts, but Yvette Cooper was quite public with her visit to Italy on Saturday.
She spoke at a political festival hosted by the Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni with the central focus on immigration as well as meeting the Italian interior minister to discuss ways to tackle criminal gangs through breaking down their illicit finance models. We understand they also discussed driving voluntary returns and working with various delivery partners.
It’s the fifth European interior minister Ms Cooper has met this week in a flurry of diplomatic meetings, all with the central point of discussions around irregular immigration. It’s clear the Home Office is trying to prove it’s not only making this issue a priority but that it can deliver on words as well.
Pre-election Labour had focused their immigration message around the cost of the now-scrapped Rwanda deal and their messaging was centred around “smashing the criminal gangs” that operated networks shuttling people on small boats across the Channel. But in recent weeks there has been a shifting of language – instead slogans like “securing borders” have been injected into the rhetoric.
Strong suspicions as to why all this focus on irregular immigration lies with the very real threat from the political right – not the traditional Conservative opposition but further along the scale with Reform UK.
Last election, Reform came second in 98 seats, showing their growing numbers of support. With Reform hot on their heels, backbench MPs especially in the North East and in traditional heartlands once called the “red wall” are becoming increasingly worried about how much and how vigorously Labour should be talking about this issue so the home secretary’s words will be watched back home with interest. It’s not just voters Labour has to convince on delivering their promises on immigration, but their anxious backbenchers as well.
Some of the measures being adopted to crack down on illegal migration include new technology such as body-worn cameras and fingerprint kits, which will be rolled out next year to more than 1,200 immigration enforcement officers to strengthen evidence that can be collected in raids, the government said.
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The government also said it launched a new “upstream communications campaign” aimed at debunking lies about job prospects in the UK told by people-smuggling gangs to encourage small boat crossings.
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Ms Cooper said: “Illegal working is a blight on our economy. It is deeply exploitative and undercuts those employers who do the right thing and play by the rules.
“Since the election, we have intensified our efforts to crack down on exploitation and illegal working – the number of operations and arrests are up, and we are on track to meet our target of increasing removals to the highest level for five years.”
