Labour’s war on migrants will include a ‘summer blitz’ of raids

Labour home secretary Yvette Cooper smiling with police as Labour launches new raids on refugees (Picture: UK Home Office)

The Home Office is launching a “summer blitz of illegal immigration raids”. This is the type of news readers might expect from a Tory government. But this is new Labour home ­secretary Yvette Cooper’s plan.

Cooper will redeploy over 1,000 staff from the failed Rwanda deportation scheme to instead round up refugees whose asylum claims have been rejected. They will target migrants from countries including Vietnam and ­workplaces such as car washes, beauty salons and nail bars. Cooper will then instruct the Home Office to deport people more quickly.

Labour claims this is to “smash the criminal gangs”. “Most people in this country want to see a properly controlled and managed asylum system,” Cooper wrote in the right wing Sun ­newspaper, “where those who have no right to be in the country are swiftly removed”.

Rounding up and deporting people does nothing to target gangs—it only leaves desperate people in more dangerous and precarious situations. Cooper will also lay out plans this week to allow refugees ­earmarked for Rwanda the opportunity to claim asylum.

Under the Tories, anyone who came to Britain ­without documentation in the last 18 months could not have their claims processed. Labour wants to clear the asylum backlog to save money on housing refugees in hotels—and kick people out faster.

As of April this year, 102,888 ­refugees were waiting for a decision. The Refugee Council estimates that 70 percent will be granted asylum. But anyone who has suffered under the Tories’ vicious asylum system should be supported by the new Labour government.

Meanwhile, another refugee died trying to cross the English Channel in an overcrowded dinghy last Wednesday. Coastguards rescued 71 people after a vessel deflated just off Gravelines, near Calais, France.

This is the fifth drowning under Keir Starmer’s Labour ­government after four refugees drowned the previous week trying to leave ­northern France. But Starmer is ploughing on with his war against smuggling gangs.

He recently pledged £84 million for projects in Africa and the Middle East to stop “illegal migration at the source”. This includes helping Syrian, Jordanian, Lebanese and North and East African refugees access education and jobs.

But better job ­opportunities won’t stop refugees fleeing war-torn countries or from corrupt regimes.
Starmer recently said “illegal migration” needed to be tackled “upstream”. Yet smuggling gangs are able to operate because there are no safe routes for refugees to enter Britain.

And Starmer hasn’t ruled out offshoring refugees for ­processing. He said, “I’m a pragmatist and I’ve always said we’ll look at what works.”

That pragmatism has led to the deaths of five refugees. Anti-racists need to fight the Starmer ­government’s racism and scapegoating of migrants and refugees.