Is Keir Starmer successful the battle on people-smuggling gangs? Take our ballot and have your say
After two more record-breaking deportation flights have taken off since the election – removing hundreds who entered the UK illegally – we want to know if you think Keir Starmer is winning the war against the people-smuggling gangs?
The PM is currently celebrating this major win in the fight against these ruthless individuals, hot-on-the-heels of the arrest of the so-called ‘Engine King’.
A Turkish man was apprehended in Amsterdam on Wednesday and is believed to have supplied hundreds of boat motors to smugglers. He’s now been extradited to Belgium to face charges. This arrest is being seen as a key blow to the gangs and their operations, with many viewing it as a ‘proof of concept’ for targeting major figures across Europe who are behind the trade, the Sunday Mirror has learned.
Labour has marked the significant milestone of having organised the three largest return flights in UK history, with a total of 629 people removed on these flights alone. And the deportations doesn’t just stop there – more flights are already in the pipeline for the rest of the year, including some to countries the UK hasn’t previously flown to.
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One Labour source didn’t mince words when talking about the state of Britain’s asylum and immigration system when Keir Starmer took over. They called it an ‘utter disaster’ and pointed out the dire situation they inherited:
“We were told it was going to be the worst year ever for small boat arrivals, and that we’d have to spend billions more to cope with the asylum backlog, including opening more than a hundred new hotels,” the source said. “All while they’d poured £700 million down the drain on a Rwanda scheme that didn’t stop a single boat or deport a single asylum seeker.”
The Home Office had already been warned back in July that Channel crossings were expected to top 50,000 for the first time in 2024, just as the asylum backlog spiked in the final months of the Tory government.
In the months leading up to Labour taking office, fewer than 100 asylum decisions were made a day, even though migrant arrivals were at record highs. Desperate to get the Rwanda plan off the ground, the Tories even offered migrants a package worth £150,000 to voluntarily move to Kigali – including a “permanent home,” five years of free food, private medical care, free education to degree level, vocational training, career support, £3,000 spending money, and even a new mobile phone.
In the end, just four people took them up on the offer: three failed asylum seekers and one immigration offender.
Since Labour took over, they’ve managed to return around 9,400 people with no legal right to be in the UK to their home countries, including nearly 2,600 forced deportations – a 19% increase compared to last year. There’s also been a 14% rise in the number of foreign national offenders being returned.
All in all, more than 25 bespoke return flights have taken place since July 5, sending individuals back to a variety of countries, including Albania, Poland, Romania, and Vietnam. There was even the first-ever charter flight to Timor-Leste, plus the largest returns flights ever to Nigeria and Ghana.
