Keir Starmer has doubled funding to combat people-smuggling. Is this a good thing?
This Writer thinks it is.
The aim is to make it easier to detect, disrupt and deter people-smuggling gangs who take money from people trying to get into the UK and then put them onto small, overcrowded boats – many of which have sunk, with lives lost as a result.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
So Starmer is handing the Home Office an extra £75 million, taking the budget for this issue to £150 million. The money will be used to create new technological “hubs”, hire extra enforcement, intelligence and prosecution staff, and end “fragmentation” between police, Border Force and intelligence personnel.
According to the BBC, the UK’s new Border Security Command will use the money to
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Hire an extra 300 staff to strengthen global partnerships and deliver new legislation
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Hire an additional 100 specialist investigators and intelligence officers for the National Crime Agency (NCA), to tackle criminals involved in people smuggling
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Install new technology around advanced data exploitation, to boost collaboration with European partners investigating trafficking networks
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Create a new specialist intelligence unit examining information from key police forces
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And boosting the Crown Prosecution Service’s ability to deliver charging decisions more quickly on international organised crime cases.
For me, this is a much better approach than targeting the people who are being smuggled, and who are themselves being exploited by the so-called “criminal gangs” our politicians spend so much time discussing in the media.
But none of these measures address the problem that makes this people-smuggling possible – the lack of any legal route for genuine asylum-seekers who are fleeing persecution in their own countries to get into the UK. These were all closed by the Conservatives when they were in office.
That is what created the opportunity for the criminality we have seen – and the deaths it has caused.
Former UK Chief Immigration Officer Kevin Saunders has criticised the current plan. He says the extra work to stop small boat crossings will not succeed.
He explained that, under the UK’s asylum system, “you can’t deport failed asylum seekers” who destroy documents – because without official documents, the UK is often unable to prove the asylum seekers’ country of origin, meaning their home countries will refuse to take them.
And he said the UK would only be able to prosecute and jail people smugglers “in the UK and the majority of people smugglers are actually based in the Middle East and Turkey”.
But Starmer is announcing the new funding at a speech to the Interpol general assembly, which brings together senior police and ministers from nearly 200 Interpol member countries; this is part of a plan for police forces across the world to co-operate to smash these gangs.
So this is a genuine, good-faith effort to smash international crime and save lives. I look forward to hearing about its success – and to a new policy that helps asylum-seekers rather than attacking them.
If you can afford it, you can read more background information about international people-smuggling in the books listed below, which are available from Amazon:
Organised Crime Involvement in Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants (IRCP)
The Control of People Smuggling and Trafficking in the EU: Experiences from the UK and Italy (Law and Migration)
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Starmer has doubled funding to combat people-smuggling
Keir Starmer has doubled funding to combat people-smuggling. Is this a good thing?
This Writer thinks it is.
The aim is to make it easier to detect, disrupt and deter people-smuggling gangs who take money from people trying to get into the UK and then put them onto small, overcrowded boats – many of which have sunk, with lives lost as a result.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
So Starmer is handing the Home Office an extra £75 million, taking the budget for this issue to £150 million. The money will be used to create new technological “hubs”, hire extra enforcement, intelligence and prosecution staff, and end “fragmentation” between police, Border Force and intelligence personnel.
According to the BBC, the UK’s new Border Security Command will use the money to
For me, this is a much better approach than targeting the people who are being smuggled, and who are themselves being exploited by the so-called “criminal gangs” our politicians spend so much time discussing in the media.
But none of these measures address the problem that makes this people-smuggling possible – the lack of any legal route for genuine asylum-seekers who are fleeing persecution in their own countries to get into the UK. These were all closed by the Conservatives when they were in office.
That is what created the opportunity for the criminality we have seen – and the deaths it has caused.
Former UK Chief Immigration Officer Kevin Saunders has criticised the current plan. He says the extra work to stop small boat crossings will not succeed.
He explained that, under the UK’s asylum system, “you can’t deport failed asylum seekers” who destroy documents – because without official documents, the UK is often unable to prove the asylum seekers’ country of origin, meaning their home countries will refuse to take them.
And he said the UK would only be able to prosecute and jail people smugglers “in the UK and the majority of people smugglers are actually based in the Middle East and Turkey”.
But Starmer is announcing the new funding at a speech to the Interpol general assembly, which brings together senior police and ministers from nearly 200 Interpol member countries; this is part of a plan for police forces across the world to co-operate to smash these gangs.
So this is a genuine, good-faith effort to smash international crime and save lives. I look forward to hearing about its success – and to a new policy that helps asylum-seekers rather than attacking them.
If you can afford it, you can read more background information about international people-smuggling in the books listed below, which are available from Amazon:
Organised Crime Involvement in Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants (IRCP)
The Control of People Smuggling and Trafficking in the EU: Experiences from the UK and Italy (Law and Migration)
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
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