Labour’s immigration policy is starting to take shape. Migration, historically, has been a tricky issue for the party. So it’s perhaps not surprising that they are taking a leaf from the Conservative playbook by focusing on border security. But Labour has shifted the villain from asylum seekers to smuggling gangs.
Speaking at Labour party conference, the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, announced a new cross-border unit of hundreds of police officers to go after smugglers. Labour leader Keir Starmer has vowed to “smash the gangs”, to treat people smuggling on par with terrorism and to use serious crime orders to freeze smugglers’ assets and restrict their movement.
Starmer and Cooper also recently travelled to The Hague for talks with Europol (the EU’s law enforcement agency) about sharing criminal data – something that ended after Brexit. And noises have been made about cooperating with Europe on a returns agreement, where the UK would accept a quota of asylum seekers who arrive in the EU, in exchange for being able to return people who cross the channel.
