Labour leader to promise to divert £75m to fund specialist force against smugglers using counter-terror powersKeir Starmer will promise to rip up the government’s Rwanda scheme and divert £75m to fund hundreds of new specialist officers to tackle people-smuggling with new counter-terror powers.At a speech on Friday in Dover – the home of Natalie Elphicke, who defected to Labour this week after criticising Tory failures on border security – the Labour leader will call the government’s plan “an insult to anyone’s intelligence” and say “the gangs that run this sick trade are not easily fooled”.Create a new post of border security commander to oversee the unit, working across Europe and with multiple agencies on enforcement and intelligence.Recruit hundreds of additional special investigators, intelligence agents and cross-border police officers.Expand stop and search powers for use against those suspected of people-smuggling.Use Serious Crime Prevention Orders, enforced on terrorists pre-conviction, to shut off the bank accounts and internet access of suspected smugglers.Extend seizure warrant powers normally reserved for terrorism to include organised immigration crime. Continue reading...
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