UK Working With European Partners to Tackle People Smuggling, Cooper Says

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper at the National Crime Agency headquarters in London, England, on Sept. 6, 2024. Benjamin Cremel/PA Wire

The government is “determined” to go after people smuggling gangs and is working with European partners to tackle the criminal enterprise, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said.

Cooper said on Friday that in the past two months, her department has seen encouraging progress in tackling people smuggling at source, with there being “significant seizures” of boats and equipment in Europe.

“But there is work to do, and the Border Security Command will bring all the relevant bodies together to investigate, arrest and prosecute these networks, as well as deepen our ties with key international partners,” she said.

The home secretary made the comments ahead of chairing a summit on tackling organised illegal immigration crime, attended by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, ministers, and representatives from agencies including the National Crime Agency (NCA), Border Force, and the Crown Prosecution Service.

The summit comes at the end of a week where 12 people died trying to cross the English Channel. The fatalities occurred in French waters on Tuesday, with the mayor of Le Portel, where causalities were being treated, describing how the bottom of the dinghy the asylum seekers were in was “ripped open.”

Cooper said in respect of the deaths, “Those gangs should not be able to get away with it, and that’s why we are determined to go after them.”

Speaking ahead of that meeting at the NCA headquarters in London, Cooper also said that the government was making progress on clearing the asylum backlog and returning those with no legal right to be in the UK “so that we can end these very costly asylum hotels.”

Dismantling the Gangs

Labour had said in May that it would employ means and resources used in tackling terrorism to dismantle illegal immigration criminal networks. This would be through the development of a Border Security Command that would see cooperation between the NCA, Border Force, and even the domestic intelligence agency, MI5.

Two months after Labour came to power, the Border Security Command is still in the process of being established. But Friday’s meeting signals this multi-agency, intelligence-focused approach is already in operation.

According to a Home Office statement, the UK Intelligence Community (UKIC) has been deploying covert capability to support the NCA “to penetrate and dismantle the gangs at every level of operation—from facilitators to financiers.”

UKIC also attended the home secretary’s meeting, which discussed progress on intercepting and dismantling the criminal networks moving people and boating equipment along France’s coast and out into the English Channel.

Stronger International Partnerships

In the past few weeks, the government has sought to strengthen European partnerships, including with Europol, in its efforts to disrupt people smuggling.

The NCA has closely co-operated with Bulgarian authorities and established an NCA presence in the eastern European nation—a critical transit country—which has led to more than 40 small boats and engines being intercepted in recent weeks, which the government said could have been used to help 2,400 people illegally get to Britain.

So far, there’s been a 50 percent increase in the number of NCA officers stationed in Europol, with there being a new post opened in Austria and officers are now permanently deployed to Romania.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer at the National Crime Agency headquarters in London, England, on Sept. 6, 2024. Benjamin Cremel/PA Wire

The government is also working with partners father afield, including in Libya where British authorities are working with local police to target gangs moving people through the north African country from which illegal immigrants set off Europe.

Last week, the home secretary announced there are now an additional 100 specialist investigators globally.

The NCA is enhancing its international network which works on targeting illegal immigration, including in south east Asia where cross-Channel transit is being widely advertised by gangs.

‘Surrendered to the Smuggling Gangs’

Some 1,276 illegal immigrants have already crossed the English Channel this week, bringing the provisional total for the year to 22,328.

Since Labour came to power, 8,754 asylum seekers have made the crossing.

Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick—the current frontrunner in the Conservative leadership contest—said that Labour had “surrendered to the smuggling gangs” when it scrapped the previous government’s plans to send illegal immigrants to Rwanda, which the Tories said would act as a deterrent.

Jenrick told Sky News: “Yvette Cooper will meet the National Crime Agency and police chiefs today, and they’ll tell her what they told me when I was the minister, which is that although it’s important that we do that work, it is not sufficient. You have to have a deterrent.”

PA Media contributed to this report.