Can Labour really stop small boat crossings? Experts say their plan is flawed

Pressure is ramping up on the new Government to tackle small boat crossings after the deaths of 12 migrants in the Channel this week.

The tragedy, in which six children and a pregnant woman were among the dead, is believed to be the worst Channel disaster since 27 people perished while trying to reach the UK in 2021.

But the deaths have not deterred further crossings. Just a day later, several dozen people made a new attempt to reach the UK in a small boat.

Labour has made cracking down on Channel crossings one of its main pledges in Government, with Yvette Cooper promising to “dismantle these dangerous and criminal smuggler gangs and to strengthen border security”.

But the party is taking a broadly different approach to its predecessors. In their first fortnight in office, Labour ditched the controversial Rwanda deportation scheme, announced the closure of the Bibby Stockholm barge, and undid elements of the Illegal Migration Act, which effectively made it impossible for small boat arrivals to claim asylum.

Ditching the Conservative slogan “stop the boats” in favour of “smash the gangs”, Ms Cooper has focused on targeting people smugglers in her response to the crisis.

Experts admitted that there was no “silver bullet” to the Channel crisis and that Labour faced tough decisions ahead.

Home Office insiders believe the plan to target the gangs is working with smugglers charging higher prices to cross the Channel – but some groups have warned that focusing too heavily on enforcement could push migrants into taking more risks.

One academic said that a swift returns agreement with France – a possible avenue of exploration for Labour – was the most viable plan, while refugee groups said that only expanded safe and legal routes to reach the UK would prevent crossings.

So as the Channel crisis continues to deepen, i examines how effective Labour’s plans are likely to be.

Crack down on smuggling

Labour plans to divert money saved by scrapping the Rwanda policy – which cost at least £300m – to tackling the smuggling gangs operating Channel crossings.

To do this, the Government is recruiting up to 100 new specialist intelligence and investigation officers at the National Crime Agency (NCA), on top of a 50 per cent uplift in the number of NCA officers stationed in Europol. It will use anti-terror legislation to give officers greater powers to crack down on smuggling networks.

It is also planning a surge in immigration enforcement and returns flights.

But one former Home Office official told i applying anti-terror laws to illegal migration was not a solution, saying: “It’s not terrorism and any comparison to it is fundamentally ridiculous.”

The former staffer suggested that it was impossible to stop movement out of humanitarian crisis zones and into Europe, saying: “We have no jurisdiction abroad and stopping people from moving across borders – thousands of miles away in places with barely functioning governments – is obviously laughable.”

The source predicted that Labour would “end up looking at a scheme just like Rwanda, exactly as the last Labour Government did in the 2000s.”

Dr Peter Walsh, senior researcher at the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory, said that several years of an “enforcement heavy approach” under the Conservatives had seen minimal results – and that some of the networks may be out of Labour’s reach.

“If you invest more resources into tracking down people smugglers and prosecuting them, then that will probably mean that more people are brought to justice. But how that affects the market for smuggling is unclear,” he said.

“The French have pointed out several times that the key disruptive act is in preventing the boats from getting to water. But there’s potentially 300 kilometres of viable coastline from which these boats can depart, so that’s a real challenge.

“Another issue is that the most senior figures in the smuggling networks operate, not just outside the UK’s jurisdiction, but beyond the EU’s jurisdiction. So while we might increase the number of officers in the NCA that are working with Europol… the senior figures are operating in countries like Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey. Those are the masterminds, they’re difficult to track down.

“The people most involved with operations on the ground, getting people into the water, operate in small groups. You arrest one of the groups and another pops up in its place. It’s been described as being like whack-a-mole.”

But a Home Office source said that intelligence indicated that targeting gangs was already having an impact, with the price of crossings going up to reflect the greater difficulty and risk smugglers were having to take.

Refugee groups have repeatedly warned that toughening border security alone may be exacerbating the problem.

They warned that migrants have been taking longer, and thus more dangerous, routes to the UK to avoid the intensified policing in Calais.

Extra policing may also be worsening overcrowding, they said, with fewer boats leaving France, more people are packing into whichever boats successfully depart.

Dr Wanda Wyporska, chief executive at Safe Passage International, said that the focus on “hostile security measures” often “push people to the brink and into the hands of smugglers, forcing them to take even greater risks and more dangerous journeys across the Channel or [risk] suffocating in the backs of lorries.”

Dr Wyporska said that smuggling gangs were “exploiting the lack of safe pathways for refugees to reach protection in the UK”, noting that Ukrainians did not get into small boats because they had a route to the UK safely.

“If this Government is truly serious about tackling the smuggling gangs, it must open safe routes,” she said.

Close hotels, clear the backlog, speed up returns

Labour has pledged to cut the backlog of asylum claims – which stood at around 95,000 at the end of 2023 – in a drive to reduce the costs of the asylum system and to stop asylum seekers being left in limbo for years as they await a decision.

This would reduce the time they need to be housed by the state, either allowing them to proceed with their lives in the UK if accepted, or be removed from the country if not.

Labour has promised to hire an extra 1,000 caseworkers, announced plans for bilateral returns agreements with safe countries, and added another 1,000 staffers to a new Returns Unit, which will review rejections from safe countries so they can be returned rapidly.

But even with greater manpower, cracking the backlog and ramping up returns is no simple task.

As more decisions are made, the Home Office will likely have to deal with more appeals against their verdicts – another hidden backlog.

And the party’s decision to undo parts of the Illegal Migration Act which nullified the claims of anyone arriving by small boat after July 2023 means those claims will now have to be tackled too, adding approximately 89,985 claims which were frozen back into the asylum system.

There are also questions about the scale of returns agreements. More than 70 per cent of those who crossed the Channel in small boats in 2023 came from seven countries – Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Eritrea, Iraq, Syria and Sudan – which are not considered by the Home Office to be “safe”.

A Home Office insider claimed that the Government didn’t need returns agreements with countries to send people back, as it could be carried out on a case by case basis.

“The previous Government did increase returns and we have gone further,” the source said. “We’ve already carried out the largest ever deportation flight [220 migrants were returned to an unknown location on 23 August, in what was the biggest single day deportation], with 12 returns flights since we took office.”

Reform resettlement routes

There are a selective number of schemes which allow people to be resettled in the UK. Most are nationality specific – for Ukrainians, Afghans and Hong Kongers – but there are also a limited number of resettlements through UN-backed schemes. Those with immediate relatives in the UK can also apply for family reunion visas.

Labour has pledged to “reform” these routes and has already expanded the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme to allow family members to reunite with those in the UK, thus giving a safe and legal pathway for them to come to the UK.

Beyond this, i understands that further plans haven’t yet been determined and work is continuing across Government to assess the routes.

Experts said that more clarity was needed on what these reforms would be.

Refugee organisations have consistently called for the creation of more safe and legal routes to get to the UK – an ask which is absent from Labour’s plans.

This could include a system in which people can apply for asylum outside of the UK – unlike current laws which require a person to be physically on British soil – a visa to allow them to travel to the UK legally to seek asylum, or an expansion of existing UN-backed schemes.

The Refugee Council argued that this would reduce dangerous crossings, saying: “People in search of safety are less likely to make terrifying, potentially fatal journeys if there are safe alternatives.”

But Dr Walsh warned it could also lead to soaring numbers of asylum claims, causing a new backlog and significant costs to the taxpayer, and that it may not reduce small boat crossings significantly because capped schemes would leave many ineligible.

New deals with France

Labour has pledged to make new agreements with France “and other countries” on returns and family reunion.

Experts say this could take the UK back to something more closely resembling its pre-Brexit agreements, when it welcomed thousands of children each year through the Dublin III mechanism.

Sir Keir Starmer has already discussed greater co-operation over the issue with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is facing his own domestic pressure over illegal migration after a man who should have been deported was charged with killing three people in Solingen.

Dr Wyporska, of Safe Passage, argued this would reduce dangerous crossings, saying: “It is far too difficult for them to apply for family reunion than it needs to be and often cases take so long that they turn to dangerous Channel crossings instead, out of sheer desperation, to reach their families.”

So, what kind of agreements could be reached? Dr Walsh said that Labour may be aiming for a rapid returns agreement with France, in which people arriving by small boat were automatically sent back to France.

“Of course, France will want something in return,” he said. “One potential avenue for negotiation is that the UK takes a certain share of those asylum seekers that we’ve returned to France, such as those with genuine family connections in the UK now. That really could reduce people crossing in more boats, because it’s clear that they won’t get to stay.”

“The alternative is an agreement with the EU but… it probably wouldn’t be a bespoke agreement, and would probably entail a signing up to their new immigration and asylum pact. We may be expected to make a monetary contribution, and would probably be expected to take some asylum seekers in return with family members in the UK – similar to what was in place when we were part of the EU.”

He added: “There’s no silver bullet here. It’s really difficult, but a swift returns agreement probably has the highest prospect of success. However, that raises the diplomatic challenge of actually securing an agreement like that with France or the EU, and then that raises the question of what they will want in return? It has to be worth their while.”

A Whitehall source also questioned whether deals with the UK would be a focus for the EU.

“There is an appetite for it, but in terms of working with the UK on it, we’re not the priority right now. We have no land borders with them, and have enough trouble as it is getting France, despite the amount of money we give them, to tackle their end of the bargain,” they said.

One source familiar with the small boats plans said that work on EU deals was ongoing and openminded, with a range of options on the table.

Tackling humanitarian crises

The new Home Office plans to do more to tackle humanitarian disaster and prevent refugee crises from developing, with £84m of funding for projects in the Middle East and Africa to tackle illegal migration “at source”. This includes “humanitarian and health support, skills training, help with job opportunities, and access to education”.

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The money will come from comes from existing Official Development Assistance (ODA) budgets, but aid funding has already been reduced from 0.7 per cent of GDP to 0.5 per cent and been criticised for being diverted to Home Office projects.

It also isn’t clear precisely whether the funds would go to NGOs or governments, with one Whitehall source saying there was natural hesitancy about inadvertantly supporting unstable regimes.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are relentless in our pursuit to end dangerous small boat crossings and ensure more lives are not lost.

“Our new Border Security Command will work with colleagues across government and with international partners to disrupt the activity of criminal smuggling gangs, and ensure those profiting from people smuggling are brought to justice. Separately, hundreds of staff have also been redeployed to clear the asylum backlog and increase removals.”