People smugglers were given an "open invitation" to send migrants to the UK because the police and intelligence agencies were not working together, Sir Keir Starmer has said. The prime minister said he was "angry" about the scale of illegal migration as he convened a summit involving 40 countries to address the problem. Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00When are you going to stop the boats, Prime Minister?
00:03Since Sakir Starmer became prime minister in July,
00:0630,000 people have crossed the English Channel
00:09in small boats.
00:10Today, he invited representatives of 40 countries
00:13to a summit at Lancaster House to try and tackle the issue.
00:17The prime minister says people smugglers
00:19have been given an open invitation
00:21to send migrants to the UK because the police
00:24and intelligence agencies were not working together.
00:28It makes me angry, frankly, because it's
00:31unfair on ordinary working people who
00:33pay the price, from the cost of hotels
00:37to our public services struggling under the strain.
00:41And it's unfair on the illegal migrants
00:43themselves, because these are vulnerable people being
00:48ruthlessly exploited by vile gangs.
00:52Recent good weather has seen a surge in small boat arrivals.
00:56More than 6,500 so far in 2025, up from 5,400
01:02from the same point last year.
01:04The crucial thing is the government
01:05needs a deterrent so that those coming across on small boats
01:09know that they will be detained and removed within hours
01:12and days, not weeks and months.
01:14But what did Labour do?
01:16They scrapped the Rwanda deterrent
01:18as one of the first things they did
01:20after the general election.
01:22Kier Starmer has no credibility on this issue.
01:24He was told we needed a deterrent.
01:27The National Crime Agency told him that.
01:28Yet he scrapped the Rwanda scheme before it even started.
01:32And these are the results.
01:33However, Sir Kier gave short shrift
01:36to the previous Conservative government's Rwanda scheme.
01:39A scheme that spent over 700 million pounds of taxpayer
01:44money to remove just four volunteers.
01:51Now, you know, even if that scheme had gone well,
01:55they were claiming that they might
01:57remove 300 people a year.
02:02Well, since coming to office, I can announce today
02:05we've returned more than 24,000 people
02:09who have no right to be here.
02:12That would have taken the Rwanda scheme 80 years to achieve.
02:17TikTok, Meta, and X were at today's summit
02:21under pressure to crack down on social media posts, which
02:24have become a key recruitment tool for smugglers.
02:27The government believes an international collaborative
02:30approach is the only way to bring down illegal migration
02:33and is beginning to bear fruit.
02:36However, an electorate impatient to see action and not summit
02:39will need to be convinced their plan will work.