Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, said she was happy to be supporting collaboration with the UK, in a recorded video played at the summit.
She said Italy’s approach with Albania to process claims offshore was initially criticised, but governments should not be afraid to imagine and build innovative solutions.
She said the model had “gained increasing consensus, so much so that today, the European Union is proposing to set up return hubs in third countries.
“This means that we were right and that the courage to lead the way has been rewarded.”
‘No country can do this alone’
Strengthening the UK’s border means working with other countries and not just “standing on our shoreline shouting at the sea”, the home secretary has said.
Yvette Cooper told delegates that illegal migration had changed in recent years because of advances in technology and a rise in criminal networks seeking to profit.
“It is governments and not gangs who should decide who enters our country and for those gangs that operate and profit across borders we and our law enforcement need to to co-operate across borders to take them down.
“Strengthening our border security means working with the countries on the other outside of our borders, not just standing on our shoreline shouting at the sea. We know that no country can do this alone.”
People smuggling ‘a shameful, disgraceful crime’
Yvette Cooper said the gangs were exploiting people “into sexual exploitation, into slave labour, into crime”
TIM ROOKE/HOME OFFICE/PARSONS MEDIA
People smuggling is a “shameful, disgraceful crime”, the home secretary has said, as ministers try to build progressive support for a crackdown on illegal immigration.
Yvette Cooper said smugglers “make people wait in the freezing water” and “overcrowd the boats, with women and children put in the centre of the boat”. She added: “We’ve seen children crushed to death, and yet the boat carries on.”
She added that if fuel mixes with seawater “that can cause terrible, terrible burns”.
Cooper told the summit: “That’s why we cannot let that carry on. All of your countries will have the different stories of the way in which the gangs are exploiting people into sexual exploitation, into slave labour, into crime.”
Bosses who hire illegal workers face jail
Bosses who hire illegal workers face up to five years in jail, the prime minister has warned.
He said the government was introducing a “tough new law to force all companies” to carry out right-to-work checks, saying too many had been able to ignore current rules.
He insisted this would not be a burden for business. “They can be done free of charge, so there’s no excuses.”
Starmer warned employers: “Failure to comply will result in fines of up to £60,000, prison terms of up to five years, and a potential closure of their businesses.”
Illegal working ‘fuels poisonous narrative of gangs’
Sir Keir Starmer has promised to crack down on illegal working in his government’s upcoming illegal migration bill.
He said the measures introduced will include prison terms of up to five years, large fines and the potential closure of the business for anyone found to employ illegal workers.
“There is little that strikes working people as more unfair than watching illegal migration drive down their wages, their conditions,” he said. “While the last government were focused on the Rwandan gimmick they left the door wide open on illegal working.”
He said illegal working was “fuelling the poisonous narrative of the gangs” who sell a dream of working in Britain on social media.
UK has been a soft touch on migration
Working people are right to find it unfair that Britain has been a soft touch for illegal migrants, the prime minister has said.
“This is about fairness, and there is little that strikes working people as more unfair than watching illegal migration drive down their wages, their terms and their conditions,” he said.
“I’ll be honest here: for too long, the UK has been a soft touch on this.”
He pledged that a crackdown on “dodgy firms” hiring migrants would stop them “undercutting honest businesses, driving down the wages of ordinary working people”.
Small boats are ‘death traps’
Small boats and outboard motors used by suspected people smugglers, stored in a Dover warehouse
GARETH FULLER/PA
Boats used by people smugglers were too flimsy even to use as children’s beach toys, Sir Keir Starmer has said, urging redoubled efforts to seize craft used for Channel crossings.
“We call them small boats, but honestly, they’re not worthy of the name boat,” he said. “To me, they look like death traps, flimsy rubber, no firm structure. You wouldn’t even let your children climb aboard, even for a second in shallow water.”
He said that if the boats were a car, “they’d be off the road in minutes, the police would intervene, and don’t tell me they’ve got any other purpose other than people smuggling, so I see no reason why we can’t go after them”.
Rwanda scheme was a ‘gimmick’
Sir Keir Starmer said he was focused on the “nuts and bolts” of law enforcement rather than “gimmicks” such as the Tories’ Rwanda scheme. “Even if that scheme had gone well, they were claiming that they might remove 300 people a year,” he said.
“Well, since coming to office, I can announce today, we’ve returned more than 24,000 people who have no right to be here. That would have taken the Rwanda scheme 80 years to achieve.”
Hundreds recruited for elite border force
The UK’s attempts to tackle the migration crisis are beginning to bear fruit, the prime minister has said.
In his speech to attendees at the summit, Sir Keir Starmer highlighted a man’s arrest in Amsterdam and a gang being arrested in Iraq. He said that hundreds of people were being recruited to create an “elite border force”.
He urged delegates at the event to share tactics, combine resources and work together to tackle the trade. “There is nothing progressive about allowing working-age people to come here illegally instead of supporting them to build their own economies.”
Evil trade pits nations against one another
Sir Keir Starmer said that “evil” people smugglers could not be stopped unless countries worked together.
“The truth is we can only smash these gangs once and for all if we work together, because this evil trade … it exploits the cracks between our institution. It pits nations against one another.”
The prime minister said there was “nothing progressive or compassionate about turning a blind eye to this”.
Starmer: ‘We must each take decisive action’
The prime minister has opened the summit by telling attendees that illegal migration is a “massive driver of global insecurity”.
The summit in London will be attended by delegates from more than 40 countries, as well as guest participants from a range of international institutions.
Starmer told the audience at Lancaster House that he was angry at the continued crossings. “It’s unfair on ordinary working people who pay the price, from the cost of hotels to our struggling public services under the strain.
“We must each take decisive action in our own countries to deal with this.”
‘Starmer has lost control of our borders’
Chris Philp said that the conference “would make no difference”
WIKTOR SZYMANOWICZ/FUTURE PUBLISHING/GETTY IMAGES
The Conservatives argue that a big rise in small boat crossings showed Sir Keir Starmer’s immigration plan was “in tatters”.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said that crossings this year had been the worst on record. “This is a direct consequence of the government cancelling the Rwanda deterrent before it even started,” he added.
He dismissed today’s conference, saying it would “make no difference” because illegal immigration would not be stopped by law enforcement while people still wanted to come.
Philp said that countries including Germany and Italy were looking at offshore processing, but added: “Starmer’s Labour government has gone in the opposite direction. He has lost control of our borders as a result.”
Migrants ‘sold lies’ about life in the UK
Migrants to Britain are being “sold lies” about life in the UK, ministers have said, as they press social media companies to take down people smuggling propaganda.
TikTok, Meta and X will attend today’s international summit to tackle migration. Dame Angela Eagle, the border security minister, said: “We’re going to be talking to them about taking more effective action to take down some of these very sophisticated adverts that are drawing people like the Vietnamese, people who are coming over to arrive in the UK, thinking that it’s a Nirvana”.
Migrants often end up “being exploited by vicious gangs”. Eagle told LBC: “Quite a lot of them are sold lies about what will await them when they come.”
More than 4,000 small boat migrants to UK in March
French police attempt to deter migrants from boarding a smuggler’s boat in Gravelines, France, last week
SAMEER AL-DOUMY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
The summit comes amid pressure on Sir Keir Starmer to address the record number of small boats crossing the Channel.
This year, 6,642 migrants have arrived in the UK via small boats, 43 per cent more than at this point last year. This month alone, more than 4,000 migrants have arrived on small boats.
Speaking this morning, Dame Angela Eagle, the home office minister, said that the measures being announced by Starmer today will help counter illegal immigration.
“There has been a 42 per cent increase in arrests, and of course we are returning people who are here with no right to be here. We’ve had 19,000 people returned, which is the largest number of returns for any year since the whole of the last parliament,” she told Times Radio.
‘This is going to take time to sort out’
The border security minister said she was “disappointed” by record numbers of small boat crossings this year, insisting it would take time to get numbers down.
Dame Angela Eagle refused to put a firm date on cutting crossings, saying: “We’ve been in government for eight months — these people-smuggling gangs have been allowed to establish themselves across the Channel and be very sophisticated with their global networks for six years.”
She told Sky News that Britain would work with other countries to “dismantle” criminal gangs but warned: “This is going to take time to sort out.”
UK to pay foreign prosecutors to track down people smugglers
Migrants board a smuggler’s boat off the beach of Gravelines in northern France in an attempt to cross the Channel
SAMEER AL-DOUMY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
The UK will pay foreign prosecutors to track down people smugglers as part of Sir Keir Starmer’s plans to “smash the gangs” and gain control of the migration crisis.
The prime minister has announced funding of £33 million towards the scheme, which will be officially unveiled at the Organised Immigration Crime summit at Lancaster House in London.
As part of the plans British investigators will supply information on smuggling in the target countries to the CPS. International liaison officers will then co-ordinate with the country’s prosecutors to help bring and secure prosecutions.
Heads of social media companies will also attend the summit as Starmer attempts to force them to remove more videos of smuggling gangs promoting their services.
