More migrants removed from UK since Labour elected than in any six months since 2019, Home Office says

Published

6 months ago

December 15, 2024

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More migrants have been removed from the UK since Labour was elected than in any other six-month period over the past five years, the government has claimed.

The Home Office announced today that almost 13,460 people had been removed since Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won by a landslide in July.

It claimed the government was “on track” to deliver on its pledge to return more people who do not have a right to stay in the UK halfway through their first year in office than any other six-month period since 2018. The goal would need to be met by early January.

But while Home Secretary Yvette Cooper claims her party had “intensified” border security measures since being elected, some 21,306 migrants have arrived by small boat since 5 July – the day after Labour was voted in.

On Thursday alone, there were 609 arrivals, making it the busiest December day for crossings on record.

Some 34,880 people have arrived in the UK on small boats so far this year, up 20% on this time last year but down 22% on 2022.

The Conservatives highlighted the number of Channel crossings is higher than the same period last year, saying Sir Keir and Ms Cooper were “failing to control our borders and should hang their heads in shame”.

Ms Cooper, who visited Rome yesterday for talks with her Italian counterpart on people-smuggling, pledged a crackdown on “exploitative” illegal working to address “the promise of illegal jobs that are used by criminal smuggling gangs to sell spaces in small boats”.

Why home secretary’s words in Italy will be watched back home with interest

We don’t usually get quite so much information about the home secretary’s bilateral meetings with any foreign counterparts, but Yvette Cooper was quite public with her visit to Italy on Saturday.

She spoke at a political festival hosted by the Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni with the central focus on immigration as well as meeting the Italian interior minister to discuss ways to tackle criminal gangs through breaking down their illicit finance models. We understand they also discussed driving voluntary returns and working with various delivery partners.

It’s the fifth European interior minister Ms Cooper has met this week in a flurry of diplomatic meetings, all with the central point of discussions around irregular immigration. It’s clear the Home Office is trying to prove it’s not only making this issue a priority but that it can deliver on words as well.

Pre-election Labour had focused their immigration message around the cost of the now-scrapped Rwanda deal and their messaging was centred around “smashing the criminal gangs” that operated networks shuttling people on small boats across the Channel. But in recent weeks there has been a shifting of language – instead slogans like “securing borders” have been injected into the rhetoric.

Strong suspicions as to why all this focus on irregular immigration lies with the very real threat from the political right – not the traditional Conservative opposition but further along the scale with Reform UK.

Last election, Reform came second in 98 seats, showing their growing numbers of support. With Reform hot on their heels, backbench MPs especially in the North East and in traditional heartlands once called the “red wall” are becoming increasingly worried about how much and how vigorously Labour should be talking about this issue so the home secretary’s words will be watched back home with interest. It’s not just voters Labour has to convince on delivering their promises on immigration, but their anxious backbenchers as well.

Some of the measures being adopted to crack down on illegal migration include new technology such as body-worn cameras and fingerprint kits, which will be rolled out next year to more than 1,200 immigration enforcement officers to strengthen evidence that can be collected in raids, the government said.

The government also said it launched a new “upstream communications campaign” aimed at debunking lies about job prospects in the UK told by people-smuggling gangs to encourage small boat crossings.

Ms Cooper said: “Illegal working is a blight on our economy. It is deeply exploitative and undercuts those employers who do the right thing and play by the rules.

“Since the election, we have intensified our efforts to crack down on exploitation and illegal working – the number of operations and arrests are up, and we are on track to meet our target of increasing removals to the highest level for five years.”

Matt Vickers, shadow Home Office minister, told Sky News in response to the new figures: “These aren’t good returns because they’re not returning the people who are arriving in the country illegally.

“These are people who were caught on illegal working raids – which is what we brought in while we (the Conservatives) were in office might I add.”

He added the deals with Italy and Albania are “just carrying on what we were doing”.

Politics

SEC says REX-Osprey staked SOL and ETH funds may not qualify as ETFs

Published

13 hours ago

May 31, 2025

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SEC says REX-Osprey staked SOL and ETH funds may not qualify as ETFs

The SEC responded shortly after the issuers filed effective registration amendments for staked SOL and Ether exchange-traded funds.

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IMF raises concern over Pakistan’s Bitcoin mining power plan: report

Published

23 hours ago

May 31, 2025

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IMF raises concern over Pakistan’s Bitcoin mining power plan: report

IMF questions Pakistan’s plan to allocate 2,000 megawatts of electricity for Bitcoin mining amid energy shortages and budget talks.

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‘No doubt’ UK will spend 3% of GDP on defence in next parliament, defence secretary says

Published

1 day ago

May 31, 2025

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'No doubt' UK will spend 3% of GDP on defence in next parliament, defence secretary says

There is “no doubt” the UK “will spend 3% of our GDP on defence” in the next parliament, the defence secretary has said.

John Healey’s comments come ahead of the publication of the government’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR) on Monday.

This is an assessment of the state of the armed forces, the threats facing the UK, and the military transformation required to meet them.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has previously set out a “clear ambition” to raise defence spending to 3% in the next parliament “subject to economic and fiscal conditions”.

Mr Healey has now told The Times newspaper there is a “certain decade of rising defence spending” to come, adding that this commitment “allows us to plan for the long term. It allows us to deal with the pressures.”

A government source insisted the defence secretary was “expressing an opinion, which is that he has full confidence that the government will be able to deliver on its ambition”, rather than making a new commitment.

The UK currently spends 2.3% of GDP on defence, with Sir Keir announcing plans to increase that to 2.5% by 2027 in February.

This followed mounting pressure from the White House for European nations to do more to take on responsibility for their own security and the defence of Ukraine.

The 2.3% to 2.5% increase is being paid for by controversial cuts to the international aid budget, but there are big questions over where the funding for a 3% rise would be found, given the tight state of government finances.

While a commitment will help underpin the planning assumptions made in the SDR, there is of course no guarantee a Labour government would still be in power during the next parliament to have to fulfil that pledge.

A statement from the Ministry of Defence makes it clear that the official government position has not changed in line with the defence secretary’s comments.

The statement reads: “This government has announced the largest sustained increase to defence spending since the end of the Cold War – 2.5% by 2027 and 3% in the next parliament when fiscal and economic conditions allow, including an extra £5bn this financial year.

“The SDR will rightly set the vision for how that uplift will be spent, including new capabilities to put us at the leading edge of innovation in NATO, investment in our people and making defence an engine for growth across the UK – making Britain more secure at home and strong abroad.”

Sir Keir commissioned the review shortly after taking office in July 2024. It is being led by Lord Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary and NATO secretary general.

The Ministry of Defence has already trailed a number of announcements as part of the review, including plans for a new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command and a £1bn battlefield system known as the Digital Targeting Web, which we’re told will “better connect armed forces weapons systems and allow battlefield decisions for targeting enemy threats to be made and executed faster”.

On Saturday, the defence secretary announced a £1.5bn investment to tackle damp, mould and make other improvements to poor quality military housing in a bid to improve recruitment and retention.

Mr Healey pledged to “turn round what has been a national scandal for decades”, with 8,000 military family homes currently unfit for habitation.

He said: “The Strategic Defence Review, in the broad, will recognise that the fact that the world is changing, threats are increasing.

“In this new era of threat, we need a new era for defence and so the Strategic Defence Review will be the vision and direction for the way that we’ve got to strengthen our armed forces to make us more secure at home, stronger abroad, but also learn the lessons from Ukraine as well.

“So an armed forces that can be more capable of innovation more quickly, stronger to deter the threats that we face and always with people at the heart of our forces… which is why the housing commitments that we make through this strategic defence review are so important for the future.”