Keir Starmer has claimed to have deported more migrants in the nine months since Labour were elected than the Rwanda scheme would have done in 80 years.
The government scrapped the Conservatives’ plan to deport so-called illegal migrants to Rwanda as soon as they got into office.
But the prime minister said today that they have still managed to eject plenty of other migrants, as more than 24,000 people with no right to be in the UK have been returned since July.
While speaking at the two-day Organised Immigration Crime Summit in London in front of representatives from more than 40 international partners have gathered, Starmer said that is the highest rate of returns in eight years.
The government has also overseen four of the largest returns charter flights in the UK history, according to the No.10, with a total of more than 850 people on board.
The prime minister said: “We are deploying resources away from the Tories’ wasteful Rwanda scheme. A scheme which would have spent £700 million of taxpayer money to remove just four volunteers.
“Even if that scheme had gone well, they were claiming they might remove 300 people a year.
“Well since coming to office, we’ve returned more than 24,000 people who have no right to be here, that would have taken the Rwanda scheme 80 years to achieve.
“That what’s I mean about not giving into gimmicks.”
Of the 24,103 returns, 6,339 where enforced returns of people with no legal right to stay in the UK, 3,594 were foreign national offenders and 6,781 were asylum related returns.
The prime minister also said Monday’s summit was the largest ever gathering of countries from different areas of smuggling routes that has ever been on the issue.
He said “serious problems” demand serious solutions, and there were “concrete proposals” now available.
He claimed people smuggling is a global security threat that must be addressed in the same way as terrorism, with a united approach because “illegal migration is a massive driver of global insecurity”.
Starmer continued: “It makes me angry, frankly, because it’s unfair on ordinary working people who pay the price – from the cost of hotels to our public services struggling under the strain.
“And it’s unfair on the illegal migrants themselves, because these are vulnerable people being ruthlessly exploited by vile gangs.”
His speech came after border security minister Angela Eagle told Sky News the government were not ruling out an offshoring agreement for asylum processing – which is exactly what the Rwanda plan was designed for.
She also admitted the government were still “disappointed” by the number of migrant boats arriving on UK shores.
She said: “Of course, we’re disappointed. Some of that is about having more people per boat, which is also more dangerous and more reckless.
“But what we’ve got to do – we’ve been in government for eight months – these people smuggling gangs have been allowed to establish themselves across the Channel and be very sophisticated with their global networks for six years. We are going to dismantle them by working with other people cross-jurisdiction, operationally too.”
“But we need time to do that, and we need to have events like this so that we can co-operate together to increase our effectiveness.”
The government is also working on its Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill.
Currently in the report stage in the Commons, this proposed legislation will give new powers to seize migrants’ phones to identify smugglers and criminalise those who endanger lives at sea.