Yvette Cooper’s plan to ‘destroy the small boat gangs’ is doomed to fail, Border Patrol whistleblowers warn – Byline Times

Within days of taking office, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper had announced the launch of a new Border Security Command that she said would “destroy” the gangs that were making millions from small boat crossings. The language was almost a copy-and-paste of the rhetoric of the last Conservative government, which had set up its own unit to tackle the smuggling networks, but it had little effect.

So is Labour’s plan any different? Some who work at the Home Office and on the border are less than impressed.

“It’s a rebranding exercise,” a disgruntled Border Force official told this newspaper following Cooper’s announcement.

“It has been tried and tested several times and in different ways, not least with the ‘Small Boats Commander’ Dan O’Mahoney in 2020.

“It’s about showing the public that they mean it, knowing full well that it will never work. We need practical solutions so that people don’t keep dying in our waters, but as usual it’s all about politics.”

More than 50 people have died this year attempting to cross the Channel, with a dozen dying in the past week alone. Despite all the deterrents, smugglers have still managed to evade UK-funded beach patrols and surveillance technology. Boats have become overcrowded, with the number of passengers crammed on board often double the number a year ago.

Meanwhile, migrants are forced to begin their journey further along the coastline, making longer and more dangerous crossings. They board rubber dinghies in estuaries and canals and wade into the water, despite many not being able to swim. As a result, their bodies have been found washed up on shores and beaches after they attempted to reach the ‘taxi boats’ stationed off the coastline.

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Everyone agrees that something must be done to prevent further loss of life. But instead of expanding resettlement programs, creating a functioning family reunification pathway, or creating additional safe routes, the new administration, like the old one, has put all its money into even more border security.

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited Italy to “learn lessons” from his far-right counterpart Giorgia Meloni, who plans to move the processing of asylum claims to Albania. At a press conference after their meeting, Meloni told reporters that Starmer was “very interested” in their offshore processing scheme.

He is also likely to be interested in exploring ways to replicate Italy’s broader model, which has seen the number of boat crossings fall by almost two-thirds in the past year. However, little was said to reporters about the tactics Italy has used to achieve this – some of which have been condemned by human rights groups as unlawful and inhumane.

Meanwhile, sitting next to the prime minister in Rome was newly appointed Border Security Commander Martin Hewitt, the former head of the National Police Chiefs Council. The Home Secretary said Hewitt’s appointment showed the government was making a serious effort rather than the “gimmicks” and presentationalism of the Conservatives. Not everyone saw it that way, however.

“It’s a repeat (of what we’ve seen before) and it’s not going to achieve much,” a Border Force official said of Hewitt’s appointment. “How do you expect to do things differently when you put the same people with the same background and experience in the same role? We need someone with a deep understanding of the maritime sector in the role. Dan O’Mahoney certainly had a Border Force and naval background. Now we’ve got someone with less experience at the top and the approach is the same. I suspect he’ll be less effective.”

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The Home Office continues to roll out its plans at a steady pace. Hours after Starmer-Meloni’s press conference, the department announced a £75m cash injection for Border Security Command. The funding will be diverted from the pot of money set aside for the scrapped Rwanda plan, it said. There would be extra officers, including 100 specialist investigators within the National Crime Agency, along with equipment and “state-of-the-art” technologies such as covert cameras.

Under Hewitt’s watch, the new command aims to increase inter-agency cooperation, with officials from the NCA, intelligence agencies, police, immigration and border control coordinating with Europol and European police forces to disrupt supply chains, identify individuals and swiftly prosecute them.

“There really hasn’t been any serious, coordinated law enforcement involving countries across Europe, the way the boats are brought in, the way the engines are put together, the way the criminal gangs operate. That’s never been done before,” Yvette Cooper told the BBC.

It may sound impressive, but her own staff doesn’t seem to agree.

“Inter-agency working, nationally and internationally, is nothing new; it’s just never been very successful,” a senior Home Office official told me. “The important thing for me is whether anyone in law enforcement has asked for this. It’s not clear whether they have.”

“We have had a lot of back and forth over the years within the Home Office about the structural arrangements for border security and migrant crossings,” the official added.

“Border Force and Immigration Enforcement were briefly a unit, but there was always tension between the Directors General, so that didn’t really work. Presentationally it sounds good, but I don’t expect much to change.”

A spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior stressed that the new measures go a step further than what had been tried before.

“The new Border Security Command (BSC) will go further than ever before to unite government agencies, police and international partners to share intelligence and defeat people smuggling gangs,” the spokesperson said.

“We have already invested £75 million in the BSC to deliver new cutting-edge technology and additional officers across the NCA, ensuring we have the resources we need to tackle gangs and tackle dangerous boat crossings.”