Labour has been accused of ‘tinkering around the edges’ with its plans to crackdown on small boat crossings.
The Home Office has announced measures to get tough on smuggling gangs, despite more than 25,000 illegal arrivals so far this year – but the Tories branded them ‘a series of gimmicks’.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper this weekend unveiled plans to introduce sentences of up to five years in prison for anyone who advertises small boat crossings or fake passports on social media.
She said she would introduce a fast-track scheme to tackle the asylum backlog, with a new law to overhaul the appeals system, in a bid to get decisions on cases within weeks.
And today, the Home Office has announced £100 million of extra funding to support the pilot of the new ‘one in, one out’ returns agreement between the UK and France.
It will also pay for up to 300 more National Crime Agency officers and new technology and equipment to step up intelligence gathering on smuggling gangs.
And there will be more overtime for immigration compliance and enforcement teams as well as funding for interventions in transit countries.
The deal, agreed last month, means the UK will be able to send migrants back to France in exchange for asylum seekers with links to Britain.
Migrants being brought onshore at Dover after crossing the Channel in small boats last month
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper this weekend unveiled plans to introduce sentences of up to five years in prison for anyone who advertises small boat crossings or fake passports on social media
But Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp criticised the announcements. He told the Daily Mail last night: ‘This weak Labour Government has come up with a series of gimmicks to grab headlines instead of fixing the issue.
‘Tinkering around the edges which will make no real difference.
‘There have been more than 25,000 illegal crossings so far this year, making it the worst year in history.
‘Labour has failed and their laughable claim to smash the gangs lies in tatters. They have no serious plan, just excuses, while ruthless criminal gangs flood our borders with illegal immigrants.’
A No 10 source hit back: ‘The Tories focused on headlines and gimmickry, we’re focused on what works.
‘Through our returns deal with France, investment in a border security and speeding up returns, we’re making steady progress.’
Public anger over small boat crossings has focused on the issue of taxpayer-funded migrant hotels, which have been the centre of a series of protests in recent weeks including in London, Newcastle and Epping in Essex.
Conservative shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick warned that ‘the public’s patience with the asylum hotels and with the whole issue of illegal migration has snapped’.
More than 25,000 small boat migrants have now arrived this year (pictured are arrivals earlier this month)
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In response, Dame Angela Eagle promised that the Government was ‘doing the detailed work’ to crack down on small boat crossings.
Asked on Sky News what her message was to protesters, Dame Angela said: ‘Anger doesn’t get you anywhere.
‘What we have to do is recognise the values we have in this country, the rule of law we have in this country, the work we’re doing with the police to protect people.
‘We will close asylum hotels by the end of the Parliament. We’ll do it faster if we can.’
Dame Angela also said: ‘We are doing all we can to deal with the challenges that the police are facing on the streets to make sure that women and girls are safe, and in fact, that everybody is safe on our streets.’
She had earlier told Times Radio: ‘Those who are worried and demonstrating have an absolute right to do that, so long as they do it peacefully.
‘People don’t have a right to then have a pop at the police, which has been happening in some isolated cases outside hotels.’
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Referring to plans to let police seize devices from people suspected of facilitating people smuggling, Dame Angela said the Government does not ‘want absolutely every phone’.
She told Times Radio: ‘But we do want the phones of the people that we think are organising and facilitating, and this extra money will enable us to do much quicker analytics of the phones that we seize.
‘But of course, we’ve got to get the Border Security Bill on the statute book to give us those extra powers.’
The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill has cleared the Commons but must undergo further scrutiny in the Lords before it becomes law.
Turning to social media creators who advertise illegal routes into the UK, Dame Angela said: ‘We will stop anyone who comes to the UK where we’ve got evidence, and what happens is that the people smugglers are getting people to say how safe the journeys were and do adverts once they’re in the UK.
‘We will stop that, and we will also deal with other jurisdictions and ask them to help us deal with this as well, we could certainly do that in the EU with our colleagues in Germany, in France.’
Where there is ‘evidence that legal routes to visas are being misused’, the Government will ‘tighten up the rules to stop that abuse happening’, the minister added.
The National Crime Agency has 91 ongoing investigations into people smuggling networks affecting the UK, the agency’s director general of operations Rob Jones said.
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But speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Jenrick said: ‘The public’s patience with the asylum hotels and with the whole issue of illegal migration has snapped.
‘This is an issue that is beyond party politics.
‘It is causing immense harm to communities, and people’s lives are being wrecked as a result of it, and we simply have to fix it.
‘I respect those people who are peacefully protesting outside hotels this weekend, I understand why they feel so concerned.
‘They’re seeing their communities damaged, and I’m afraid there is increasing evidence of a serious link between illegal migration, migration generally, and crime, particularly sexual crime, against women and girls.’
