Home Office officials are ‘underwhelmed’ by Labour’s plans to tackle the small boats crisis and have suggested it will not work, according to reports last night.
Civil servants at the department are said to believe that the Government’s proposals will have little impact on Channel crossings and reducing illegal migration to the UK.
Some in the Home Office have reportedly claimed ‘nobody’ understands how the new Border Security Command (BSC) – set up just days after Labour swept to power in July – will work and department officials are ‘underwhelmed’ by strategy outlined last week.
Experts have warned that smugglers will adjust to any changes and that demand for gangs’ services is not slowing, according to the i newspaper.
The damning revelations will heap further pressure on Labour to get a grip on the small boats crisis, which saw its busiest fornight on the Channel so far this year with the migrants reaching Britain since the new Government took office topping 18,000.
And yesterday figures from the Home Office revealed nine boats carrying 572 people were intercepted crossing the Channel on Saturday.
This has taken the total number of migrants to arrive so far this year to almost 33,000.
According to the i, there is ‘cynicism’ among department officials about whether the BSC, backed by £150m of funding from the Government, will prove to be any more successful than previous units operated under the Conservatives.
One Home Office official told the newspaper: ‘It’s fine for us to talk about targeting smugglers in the UK but there are a lot of people in Europe who have to get involved.
‘There are clearly political reasons about why they want to look tough on all this, but what is the impact actually going to be on the number of people arriving in the UK?’
The source added that the BSC was partly a ‘holding pen for people who didn’t have anything to do anymore because they got rid of the Rwanda policy’.
‘Nobody quite knows how it’s going to work,’ they added.
A former senior Government offical described Labour’s plans as ‘pretty underwhelming’.
They told the i: ‘This ‘smash the gangs’ thing seems to be the only show in town, which I think is disappointing,’ he said.
‘Surely when you’re looking at the problem, one of the things you’re looking at is why people are coming. If you don’t know what the reason is you can’t address it. Blaming the gangs might be answering the wrong question.’
Labour’s Border Security Command (BSC) – led by former police chief Martin Hewitt – was set up to ‘strengthen Britain’s border security and smash the criminal smuggling gangs making millions out of small boat crossings’.
But during the election campaign, Tory PM Rishi Sunak claimed that thousands of migrants were ‘queueing up; in Calais as they waited for an incoming Labour government that pledged to scrap the Conservatives’ Rwanda asylum deal.
In its manifesto, Labour promised to set up a returns and enforcement unit to fast-track removals to safe countries for people who do not have the right to stay here.
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.
‘Our new Border Security Command will strengthen our global partnerships and enhance our efforts to investigate, arrest, and prosecute these evil criminals. We will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.’