Keir Starmer vows to smash 'vile trade' of people smuggling

Britain will use injection of cash and greater co-operation with international intelligence agencies to tackle illegal people traffickers, Interpol conference will hear

Migrants try to board a smuggler's inflatable dinghy in an attempt to cross the English Channel. AFP

Britain’s Prime Minister has vowed to “stamp out” the “vile trade” of human trafficking as the country hosts its first Interpol conference in 50 years.

Keir Starmer said he would use all his skills as a lawyer as well as greater co-operation with European countries to stop the trade, which causes many deaths each year as thousands of migrants attempt illegal crossings of the English Channel.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at the Interpol General Assembly. Russell Cheyne/Pool Photo

At the opening of the Interpol general assembly in Glasgow on Monday, Mr Starmer outlined how criminal operations run “from the money markets in Kabul through to the Kurdish region of Iraq”, across Europe and into Britain.

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A Banksy mural at the entrance to the 'Jungle' migrant camp in Calais, France, fades as nature reclaims the area in 2018, two years after more than 1,000 migrants were evicted. All photos: Getty Images

Sand dunes at the former site of Calais 'Jungle' migrant camp, which is now a nature reserve

The last remaining migrants at the camp wait for transport outside the site in October 2016

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Police stop a migrant from returning

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French business owners and locals blockade the main road into the Port of Calais, demanding the removal of the 'Jungle' camp in September 2016

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“The world needs to wake up to the severity of this challenge,” he will say. “I was elected to deliver security for the British people and strong borders are a part of that. This is a vile trade that must be stamped out wherever it thrives”.

Mr Starmer will make it his “personal mission” to “smash” the gangs by resetting Britain’s approach while intensifying international collaboration to meet the global scale of the threat, Downing Street said. He announced that the new Border Security Command (BSC) would take a counter-terrorism approach to people smuggling and “apply it to the gangs”.

“We’re ending the fragmentation between policing, Border Force and our intelligence agencies,” he added. Britain is investing £150 million for specialist investigators and state of the art surveillance equipment to trap criminals.

Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, said the cash will provide a “huge step change” in the way it targets criminal gangs. “Traffickers operate in networks across borders, that’s why we have launched a major boost to our co-operation with international partners including other European countries,” she added. “Criminal smuggler gangs profit from undermining our border security and putting lives at risk and they have been getting away with it for far too long.”

Mr Starmer will also announce that more intelligence will be shared with other international agencies including Europol. The BSC will have 300 staff to tackle the boat crossings and other smuggling as well as 100 specialist investigators from the National Crime Agency (NCA) dedicated to tackling criminals who facilitate people smuggling.

“Distance, borders and languages are meaningless to criminals,” said Graeme Biggar, director general of the NCA. “This is why collaborations with Interpol have never been as important as they are today.”

He promised to work with social media companies to remove harmful content promoting illegal migration services or advertising fake job opportunities. The BSC will also co-ordinate the work of intelligence agencies and law enforcement.

Interpol’s general assembly is the crime agency’s supreme governing body and includes senior ministerial and policing officials from the organisation’s 196 member states.