Smugglers thrive on closed borders—Starmer’s plan falls short without safe routes for desperate migrants

8 November 2024, 08:39

Keir Starmer says he wants to work with countries in the Western Balkans to break the business model of smugglers, but if he’s serious then he must be prepared for an honest conversation about what that business model is.

Smugglers don’t create migrants; they are opportunists who take advantage of people who have no other options. There is no visa for people to come and claim asylum in the UK, so when people have a need to flee from wars, persecution, trafficking and other forms of violence, the smugglers are often the only option available.

Theirs is a business model that depends on countries trying to keep people out so the smugglers can charge a premium to get them in.

These routes are dangerous and rife with exploitation. People often fall victim to traffickers who make false promises of safety in Europe and then ruthlessly exploit them for their own benefit.

Deals with the Albanian government have led to young Albanians facing increased risk of violence and exploitation in the UK as a result of the lack of routes to safety. Repeating these deals will only put more people at risk and strengthen the grip of traffickers.

The last government spent years pursuing ever more costly and ineffective deterrence measures, from the Rwanda plan to increased border security to shutting down the asylum system. Still, none of it ever succeeded in stopping people from trying to reach safety.

As the UK and France made each route more difficult, the smugglers simply changed their tactics and took people down ever more dangerous paths. Still, the impact of the ‘Stop the Boats’ mission is not shown in the number of people coming, which has actually increased, but in the growing number of deaths in the Channel.

The new government was right to scrap the Rwanda plan, but their continued focus on ways to keep people out is sadly more of the same failed policies of deterrence. The reality is that we cannot stop people from trying to seek safety.

All we can do is change how we respond to them. Do we create a system that offers safe, orderly routes or continues to force people to risk their lives?

If this government is serious about breaking the business model of smugglers, the only option is to move away from deterrence and offer people a genuine alternative to the smugglers. Until then, we will continue to see people losing their lives in search of safety.

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Lauren Starkey is an independent social worker and anti-trafficking campaigner.

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