LONDON — Keir Starmer promised voters he would “smash the gangs.” It’s proving easier said than done.
Less than a year after Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak went down in flames amid a failed promise to “stop the boats,” his Labour successor is grappling with the same highly-visible sign of Britain’s struggle to control its borders.
The early signs aren’t promising.
More than 1,100 migrants crossed the English Channel this Saturday, official data show, the highest number recorded in a single day so far in 2025. It brings the provisional total of people making the perilous journey so far this year to 14,811.
Responding to the numbers, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has been reaching for some familiar scapegoats: France — and the weather.
Cooper urged swifter action from French authorities after images of police apparently watching people set off for England without intervening were splashed across British newspapers.
The Home Office has also made great play of unseasonably good weather, publishing an analysis Tuesday linking it to the increased arrivals.
It said 60 days this year up to May had been classed as “red days” — labeled as such by the authorities because Channel crossings are more likely due to good weather — compared with just 27 in the same period last year.
Acknowledging voter anger about the crossings, Starmer insisted the government is “ramping up our efforts to smash the people smuggling gangs at source,” pointing to seized boats and engines, raids on illegal workers, and deportations of people deemed ineligible for asylum.
But the vanquished Conservatives find themselves enjoying a rare moment of schadenfreude.
“No one revels in massive numbers of illegal immigrants flooding into the country, but they have done a terrible job,” Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said. “Their claim to smash the gangs is in complete tatters.”
He said Tuesday: “Blaming the weather for the highest ever crossing numbers so far this year is the border security equivalent of a lazy student claiming ‘the dog ate my homework.’”
Regrets, I have a few
With right-wing insurgent Nigel Farage snapping at his heels, Starmer may well be contemplating the fate of Tory predecessor Sunak.
Sunak has since conceded that his embrace of the “stop the boats” slogan — emblazoned on the Downing Street lectern at press conferences and adorning Tory campaign literature — was a mistake. He has conceded that the language was “too stark … too binary.”
Starmer has similarly made big promises about “restoring order” to the asylum system, deploying his own three-word slogan: “Smash the gangs.”
Yet there are signs of increased confidence among people smugglers. New data show that boats are arriving in the U.K. more packed with people than ever. Some 33 small boats carrying more than 80 people each arrived in the U.K. last year, compared to just one in the year to April 2023.
Like Sunak, Starmer is grappling with multiple factors that appear beyond his control — as was starkly illustrated by that syndicated picture of French police watching boatloads of migrants depart.
Cooper has flourished the new agreements she has reached with French authorities, heralding a new multimillion-pound plan when she became the first home secretary to visit Northern France in almost five years.
But those making the crossings appear to be exploiting French rules that prevent police from stepping in when they are already in the water.
The French interior ministry has promised to free police to operate in shallow waters, with its General Secretariat for the Sea having been asked to formulate a proposal by the summer. Cooper told MPs on Monday she is urging France to complete its maritime review of operational tactics and to implement changes “as swiftly as possible.”
‘Not acceptable’
Starmer’s own MPs, many of whom are facing the threat of Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party, are giving ministers the benefit of the doubt — for now.
Mike Tapp, the Labour MP for the coastal town of Dover, said the numbers were “not acceptable,” but insisted his party’s approach is the right one.
“We’ve put a lot of effort into fixing what’s going on behind the scenes,” he said. Border security needs to be a “top priority,” he added. While describing the threat from Reform UK as multifaceted, he said the issue of illegal migration is “toxic.”
A second Labour MP, granted anonymity to speak candidly, wants to see more movement on deterrence.
“Serious action needs to be taken to activate third country return hubs, and I would argue an updated approach to the [European Convention on Human Rights] needs to be taken,” the MP said.
Starmer used a trip to Albania last month to say he wants to send refused asylum seekers to return hubs. But the challenge of setting up such schemes was starkly illustrated when the Balkan country ruled out participating in any U.K. plan.
The government has set out plans to tighten the application of Article 8 of the ECHR, which protects the right to family life and is sometimes invoked by people seeking to remain in the U.K. in immigration cases.
It also happens to have been a longstanding bugbear of the Conservatives.
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