Keir Starmer has said desperate families seeking asylum have been given “false hope” as borders are like a “sieve” under the Tories.
In a speech in Dover, the constituency of Tory defector Natalie Elphicke, the Labour leader criticised governments across nations having “brutally let down” people. But he said he will cancel the Rwanda flights right away as he does not want to “flog a dead horse” that he believes will not work.
Mr Starmer recalled a visit to a refugee camp in Calais in 2016 where he said he had met children the same age as his son and daughter living in tents in freezing and muddy conditions. He said it was a “desperate situation”, adding: “I came away from that day profoundly depressed and I would defy anyone to go into those camps and come away with any other reaction.
“That camp represented a monumental failure, across nations. People had been brutally let down, by governments of course. Not just in terms of the truly awful conditions but also because the failure of our asylum system had encouraged a false hope.”
Mr Starmer said the border system was “like a sieve” as he pointed out the Home Office admitted it’s lost track of thousands of people. He reiterated his commitment to cancelling the Rwanda plan as he said: “I’m not going to waste my time on gimmicks.”
Criticising the Tory scheme to deport migrants to Rwanda, Mr Starmer said: “Throwing good money after bad, hoping it will get a few flights – with what, a couple of hundred migrants off the ground, because it’s symbolic. For party management. For the election. It’s gesture politics. £600million for a few hundred removed – that is gesture politics.”
He set out plans for a new Border Security Command bringing together the National Crime Agency, Immigration Enforcement and MI5, while hiring hundreds of new specialist investigators to work across the UK and Europe to tackle human trafficking gangs. Under his proposals, powers created in 2000 by the Terrorism Act will be used to seize and examine the mobile phones of suspected smugglers, as well as monitor their bank accounts.
Ms Natalie Elphicke, who defected from the Tory party earlier introduced Mr Starmer’s speech. “As you all know this week I joined the Labour Party to be part of the change our country needs. Under Rishi Sunak the Conservatives have become a byword for incompetence and division. They have abandoned the centre ground and failed to deliver for the British people.
“Under Keir Starmer Labour occupies the centre ground and looks to the future, to build a Britain of hope, optimism, opportunity and fairness. A Britain everyone can be a part of. Nowhere is Rishi Sunak’s lack of delivery clearer than on the issue of small boats. They are failing to keep our borders safe and secure.”
Mr Starmer is facing anger from some Labour MPs that the former Tory was accepted into the party. Ms Elphicke was a staunch supporter of Boris Johnson and took tough views on issues such as immigration. In 2022, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said Ms Elphicke could “f*** off” after she attacked free school meals campaigner Marcus Rashford.
She was also temporarily suspended from the Commons in 2021 after she was found to have tried to influence a judge presiding over the trial of her then-husband, the disgraced Tory MP Charlie Elphicke. Mr Elphicke was sentenced to two years in prison in 2020 for sexually assaulting two women. She was elected as MP for Dover in 2019, his former seat.