UK should lead Europe’s people-smuggling investigations, Starmer says

The UK should take charge of future Europe-wide investigations into people-smuggling gangs as it seeks a new security deal with EU countries, Keir Starmer said on Monday.

The prime minister has also indicated that EU leaders have shown an interest in giving the UK access to a key intelligence database used to identify people seeking asylum.

His comments, made at an Interpol annual general assembly in Glasgow, come days before he meets EU leaders including Giorgia Meloni to discuss future cooperation.

Emphasising his "personal mission to smash the people-smuggling gangs", Starmer told journalists that he plans to improve on previous negotiations with European partners.

"I don't think we did as well as we should have done when we came to the question of cross-border crime and security, and that's why we want to improve on it. And that can be done at the EU level.

"I'm very keen to get the UK into a leadership position when it comes to the actual operations, particularly in relation to smuggling and putting people into small boats across the Channel," he said.

It is understood that the government is seeking access to Eurodac, which stores the fingerprints of asylum seekers and migrants who have entered a European country.

He continued: "There is an appetite to work more closely with us on this. Because look, these are shared challenges.

"They [EU leaders] also do value what the UK has to offer. That has always been my strong view and it remains my strong view. They know that we've very good intelligence, very good capability."

Starmer went into further detail about how a deal with the EU could work and said he would push to regain access to the EU's real-time intelligence sharing networks.

Starmer said the European convention on human rights, which some senior Tories have said should be scrapped, needs to "keep up to speed" and be modernised but said the UK should remain a signatory.

"Well, the convention always needs to keep up to speed in changing circumstances, and it always has. And I approve of that.

"But among the reasons we shouldn't withdraw is that all of this collaborative work is premised on these international agreements," he said.

In a further development, ministers are examining plans to fast-track asylum applications from people who have arrived in the UK from specific 'high grant rate' countries, Yvette Cooper said.

"One of the things we're doing is getting the decision making speeded up right across the board.

"We are also looking at ways in which we could develop a fast-track approach for predominantly safe countries, so that that can be linked to much swifter returns as well," she said.

The home secretary declined to tell journalists which claimants could have their applications sped up, but high grant rate countries include Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Sudan and Syria.

Analysis by the Refugee Council shows that nearly 6 out of 10 of the people who came across the Channel in the year leading up to the general election were from high grant rate countries.

Starmer said the government should fast-track claims from people seeking asylum from countries with a high grant rate as well as those from "safe" countries.

"I think we should move all the cases through the system much more quickly. One of the problems we've got is that the last government didn't process the claims, and that left us in the worst of all worlds, which was unprocessed claims," he said.

Starmer said the government will "treat people smugglers like terrorists" as he announced a further £75m for his border security command . Anti-terror powers could be used to gather intelligence from suspected smugglers' phones and get ahead of gangs, Starmer said.

"With counter-terrorism powers you can get in with the intelligence beforehand, the preparatory acts, in a much more meaningful way and get into some of the information that they are holding, particularly information held on phones etcetera and seizure of phones.

"What that will give us is the capability at speed to get ahead of what they're doing so it's more in the upstream work that the counter-terrorism powers really make a difference.

"There are other powers that can then be put in place which don't necessarily require a conviction where you can restrict the activities of individuals.

"It's those sorts of powers I'm most interested in," he said.

In a speech at the Interpol general assembly in Glasgow on Monday, Starmer said the government will double funding to £150m for the Border Security Command, the enforcement agency launched by the Labour government this summer.

The border security, asylum and immigration bill, announced in the king's speech in July, will be the fourth piece of immigration legislation since 2022 as successive governments have attempted to tackle this issue.

The prime minister also announced a £6m increase in the UK's support for Interpol as it tackles global organised crime.