Illegal migration 'pits nations against one another', Starmer to tell summit

Sir Keir Starmer is set to address a summit today aimed at cracking down illegal migration.

The UK prime minister is expected to say countries must not be pitted against each other over the "vile trade" of people smuggling.

Representatives of 40 countries will gather in London for the two-day summit, where Sir Keir is expected to call for nations to work together to stop people smuggling gangs in the same way they co-operate on terrorism.

Ministers will announce that some £33m will be spent to disrupt people-smuggling networks and boost prosecutions, the Times newspaper reports.

Sir Keir will also call for unity among the nations at the summit, which will include France and the US.

"This vile trade exploits the cracks between our institutions, pits nations against one another and profits from our inability at the political level to come together," he will say.

The Home Office says the summit will deliver "concrete outcomes" for nations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and North America.

Ahead of the summit, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that the government was looking at other countries where it could process asylum seekers.

Ms Cooper said the summit was necessary because illegal immigration is a "global problem".

"The criminal gang networks that end up with people arriving in the UK, stretch back through northern France, through Germany, across Europe, to places like the hills of Kurdistan or the money markets in Kabul," she added.

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Senior Conservative shadow minister Alex Burghart said on Sunday that the Labour government should not have scrapped the Rwanda deportation plan when it came to power.

Mr Burghart said the programme, which was aimed at deterring people from making the journey across the English Channel in small boats, had been "ready to go" but that there was now "no deterrent" in place.

A record number of people - around 6,000 - have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel in the first quarter of the year.

The number is higher than the 5,435 people who arrived in the county in the first three months of 2024.