Keir Starmer announced details of a new immigration policy that Labour said would result in criminals involved in cross-Channel people-smuggling being treated as terrorists.
He suggested that an agreement to send back people who cross the Channel could involve accepting quotas of asylum-seekers via the EU, and in doing so set out clear pre-election divisions between Labour and the Conservatives on immigration.
Staff from Care4Calais, a refugee charity providing humanitarian aid to thousands of people living in appalling conditions in northern France, give their views on the policy.
Steve Smith, CEO of Care4Calais
Today was an opportunity for Keir Starmer to inject some decency and compassion into the debate around refugees. Instead, he chose to mirror the gimmicks and divisive rhetoric employed by the Conservatives.
“Smash the gangs” may get him a headline in the Sun, but it’s not a plan. It’s no better than the prime minister’s vacuous “stop the boats” slogan.
It’s clear that neither Starmer nor Sunak understand the causes and effects of the global refugee crisis.
I was in Calais with our team delivering humanitarian aid to refugees just two weeks ago. I met men, women and children, each with their own stories of the horrors they have escaped in their home countries, such as Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria and Eritrea. Each had made the heartbreaking decision to flee their homes in pursuit of a safe future.
None of them are in Calais because they want to be. They are there because the current government has effectively closed every safe route to claim asylum in the UK. And that’s the crux of this problem.
If refugees in Calais had the option of a safe route, they wouldn’t choose to risk their lives crossing the Channel in a small boat. It is the government’s failure to offer safe routes that has created the “market” for criminal gangs to exploit refugees who have fled conflict, torture and modern slavery.
Headline-grabbing slogans won’t solve this problem. Until their “market” is disrupted, gangs will continue to exploit refugees seeking to claim asylum in the UK.
A leader serious about becoming the next prime minister should know this and be setting out a serious plan. That’s why Keir Starmer should have announced today that a Labour government would introduce a safe passage visa, similar to the scheme in place for Ukrainians. This would see offshore applications screened in advance, and safe passage offered to those with viable asylum claims.
Offering refugees safe passage would put smugglers out of business and end small boat crossings overnight.
Safe passage, alongside some of Starmer’s less headline-grabbing ideas – such as efficiently processing asylum claims and negotiating a new agreement with the EU – would go some way to repairing the UK’s broken asylum system.
Imogen Hardman, an operations manager based in the refugee camps in northern France
Keir Starmer’s plans to smash the people-smugglers and end small boat Channel crossings this way are doomed to failure.
While conditions on the ground here in northern France are getting more and more difficult for asylum seekers who are hoping to reach the UK by crossing the Channel in small boats, the increased rhetoric and enforcement measures aren’t preventing people from crossing.
We have seen from the high numbers continuing to cross ever since the Rwanda plan was announced in April 2022 that deterrents don’t work. Announcements that asylum seekers were going to be put on barges like the Bibby Stockholm aren’t working either.
I started working in northern France in 2020 then took a break for a year before returning in March of this year. Since I came back, the numbers of asylum seekers in northern France are much higher than they were when I started.
There’s no doubt that the rhetoric from the British government is making people more scared but instead of putting them off it’s just making them take bigger risks to reach the UK.
Since March of this year alone, a very high number of people have lost their lives, with three people dying trying to get into the back of a lorry as well as the six asylum seekers from Afghanistan who drowned.
Nothing will stop the crossings and the smugglers apart from humanitarian visas for refugees, which can be applied for from anywhere in the world.
People have fled some very big things in their home countries and UK government deterrent policies won’t prevent them from trying to reach safety. Those who want to come here often speak the language or have relatives here and many of them say to me that they see the UK as a country that upholds human rights. The only way to stop the crossings and the smugglers is by providing refugees with safe passage.
But unfortunately, the asylum seekers here have become pawns in the general election game and their humanity and individual stories have been lost.
