Latest news with #EnglishChannel
Forbes
a day ago
- Politics
- Forbes
U.K. Announces Random Sanctions Hoping To Reduce Irregular Migration
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) ... More (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images) The government of the United Kingdom has announced a raft of financial sanctions and asset freezes against various individuals and entities it says are 'driving' irregular migration to Britain. It is the latest step in the Labour party government's attempts to reduce arrivals to the U.K., particularly those coming across the English channel by small boat from France. While the government is saying this move represents an 'innovative foreign policy approach" to deliver on its commitments to reduce irregular migration, it is unclear how this raft of sanctions will help, given the diffuse nature of smuggling networks and irregular migration. 'This is a landmark moment in the government's work to tackle organized immigration crime (and) reduce irregular migration to the U.K.' said Foreign Secretary David Lammy in the press release announcing the sanctions. In total, the government says it will sanction 25 individuals and entities 'at the heart of people-smuggling networks that drive irregular migration to the U.K.' These sanctions target various people and entities that are allegedly involved in the smuggling trade, including a Chinese company which makes boats roughly corresponding to those used by people to cross the channel, as well as various Balkan groups that allegedly make fake passports for irregular migrants. On the list as well are people allegedly involved in the informal 'Hawala' system of payments very common in developing countries, as well as the 'Tetwani Gang' who are referred to in the government's press release as 'known as one of the Balkan's most violent people.' Various other people and groups are listed for sanctions under headings such as 'Iraqi-linked people-smuggling," 'Gangland bosses,' and 'North African gangs operating in the Balkans." If the scattershot nature of these financial sanctions is confusing, it is better understood within the context of the pressure the Labour government is under to reduce irregular migration. The party, under Prime Minister Keir Starmer, campaigned heavily on a platform of reducing irregular arrivals to the U.K. Since coming to power in mid-2024, the government under Starmer has put a heavy emphasis on border security, detention and deportations. Nonetheless, they have faced significant electoral challenge from the far-right anti-immigration Reform Party. Facing challenge from Reform - and fearing that if they do not appear 'tough' enough on migration they will lose further electoral ground - the Starmer government has done its best to show it is taking the issue 'seriously.' In recent months, the government has announced a massive increase in deportation flights of rejected asylum seekers - despite concerns raised by legal and human rights advocates. It has also announced it is considering leveraging visa policy arrangements to get poorer countries to accept more deportations of their nationals. None of this seems to have shifted the needle. Nonetheless, with this latest raft of sanctions, it seems the Labour government is doubling down on the strategy, isolating what various people and groups it can find to show the British public it is serious about reducing irregular migration - even if this rag-tag group of entities being denied access to the U.K. banking system probably won't quite 'stop the boats.'
New York Times
a day ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Britain Moves to Curb Migrant Trafficking, and Ease Anger at Home
British authorities on Wednesday imposed sanctions on more than a dozen people and organizations suspected of smuggling migrants into Britain, cutting them off from the country's financial system and barring them from entering. It was the first use of a new legal authority aimed at disrupting the human-trafficking networks run by gangs and organized-crime syndicates that transport desperate migrants into the country. The migrants' journeys often conclude with the dangerous crossing of the English Channel in small, rickety boats. It was also the latest attempt by Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government to confront growing political anger about the rising number of migrants trying to cross the channel. While overall migration, including foreign students and workers, is down, the number of migrants arriving in small boats has spiked to about 42,000 this year as of June 30 — a 34 percent increase over the same period last year. The British Foreign Office said the 25 people and criminal organizations targeted on Wednesday had been supplying the small boats, producing fake passports and specializing in moving money outside traditional financial networks to facilitate the illegal movement of people. Among them were a person who the government said ran safe houses along the smuggling routes and seven people reported to be involved with the Kavac Gang, a Balkan-based group that it said created fake passports. David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has called the crackdown part of the country's moral duty to stop the crossings. 'From Europe to Asia, we are taking the fight to the people smugglers who enable irregular migration, targeting them wherever they are in the world and making them pay for their actions,' he said in a statement Wednesday morning. 'My message to the gangs who callously risk vulnerable lives for profit is this: We know who you are, and we will work with our partners around the world to hold you to account.' Mr. Starmer's Labour government has been under increasing pressure since he promised during his campaign to reduce the flow of illegal migration. Small boats account for only about 5 percent of overall immigration into Britain, but the images of migrants jumping off the boats onto the beaches have become a potent political issue. Conservative politicians and their supporters have seized on the growing presence of migrants to attack the prime minister. In Epping, a town at the edge of London, several angry protests erupted in recent weeks after an Ethiopian migrant living in a hotel was charged with sexual assault. It was the latest in a series of protests in Britain about hotels catering to migrants. Chris Philp, the member of Parliament who speaks for the Conservative Party on migration issues, called the sanctions an ineffective and insufficient response and said the government should immediately deport anyone arriving in the small boats. 'The truth is you don't stop the channel crossings by freezing a few bank accounts in Baghdad or slapping a travel ban on a dinghy dealer in Damascus,' Mr. Philp said. 'Swaths of young men are arriving daily, in boats bought online, guided by traffickers who laugh at our laws and cash in on our weakness.' Advocates for migrants welcomed the new efforts on trafficking, in part because they target traffickers and not migrants themselves. But they cautioned that the relatively modest sanctions would probably do little to dissuade people desperate to leave their homes. 'The men, women and children risking their lives in small boats are often fleeing places like Sudan, where war has left them with nowhere else to turn,' said Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, a British-based organization that works with refugees and asylum seekers. 'People do not cross the channel,' he said, 'unless what lies behind them is more terrifying than what lies ahead.' British officials said the new sanctions were part of a broader effort to return more migrants to their home countries if they do not qualify for asylum or refugee status. Since Mr. Starmer's election last summer, the British government has returned 35,000 migrants, according to the Foreign Office, an increase of 13 percent over the previous year. This month, Mr. Starmer announced an agreement with President Emmanuel Macron of France to bolster enforcement to prevent the small boats with migrants from leaving French beaches in the first place. But migration experts say all of Mr. Starmer's efforts face significant challenges and may have little impact on the flow of people. Peter Walsh, a senior researcher at the Migration Observatory at Oxford University, said that many smuggling networks operated almost entirely in other countries, outside British jurisdiction, where the sanctions would have little real-world impact. He also said that Mr. Starmer's promise to 'smash' the gangs would be difficult to fulfill because the groups rely heavily on middlemen working in the informal money-transfer network known as Hawala, which operates outside traditional financial systems. Mr. Walsh said many countries, including Pakistan and India, had tried to combat the middlemen without much success. 'The gangs are pretty difficult to smash,' Mr. Walsh said. 'They are highly decentralized. They are highly adaptive.'
Al Jazeera
a day ago
- Business
- Al Jazeera
UK sanctions 25 targets involved in alleged people smuggling
The United Kingdom has sanctioned 25 targets involved in alleged people smuggling, under a new financial sanctions regime targeting those facilitating the travel of refugees and migrants across the English Channel via small boats. The individuals and entities targeted on Wednesday include a small boat supplier in Asia and gang leaders based in the Balkans and North Africa. 'Middlemen' putting cash through the hawala money transfer system in the Middle East, which is used in payments linked to Channel crossings, are also targeted. It is unclear how effective the new sanctions regime will be, since British authorities can only freeze assets that are in the UK, and most of the smugglers are based elsewhere. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said on Wednesday that it was a 'landmark moment in the government's work to tackle organised immigration crime [and] reduce irregular migration to the UK'. 'From Europe to Asia, we are taking the fight to the people smugglers who enable irregular migration, targeting them wherever they are in the world and making them pay for their actions,' he added. The move follows legislation being introduced under the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill to ramp up enforcement powers for police forces and partners to investigate and prosecute people smugglers. As part of the new sanctions regime, which was introduced two days ago, the government can now freeze assets, impose travel bans and block access to the country's financial system for individuals and entities involved in enabling irregular migration, without relying on criminal or counterterrorism laws. Albanian Bledar Lala, leader of the Belgian operations of an organised smuggling group, and a company in China that advertised small boats for people smuggling on an online marketplace are among those sanctioned. The number of refugees and migrants arriving on England's southern coast via small boats from northern France is a major political issue for Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour government, which has seen the far-right Reform UK party make significant political gains with a hardline anti-immigration platform. Starmer recently agreed to migration deals with France and Germany. Earlier this month, Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed to a 'one in, one out' deal in which refugees and migrants arriving by small boats would be returned to France in exchange for an equal number of migrants being able to come to the UK from France via a new legal route, which would be fully documented and subject to strict security checks. Last week, Germany and the UK signed a historic defence treaty, in which Berlin committed to making facilitating the smuggling of refugees and migrants to the UK a criminal offence. The law change, which is expected to be passed by the end of the year, will give German authorities more powers to investigate and take action against warehouses and storage facilities used by smugglers to conceal small boats for Channel crossings. Some 37,000 people crossed the English Channel in 2024, and more than 22,000 so far in 2025 – an increase of about 50 percent from the same period last year. Dozens of people have died attempting the journey.
Russia Today
2 days ago
- Business
- Russia Today
UK to sanction people smugglers
The UK will freeze assets and impose entry bans on individuals facilitating unauthorized small-boat crossings across the English Channel, Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced on Tuesday. The measures, set to take effect on Wednesday, come in response to a rise in small-boat crossings from continental Europe to Britain. British officials say the route is increasingly used for unauthorized migration and linked to organized smuggling networks. 'The UK has created the world's first sanctions regime targeting gangs involved in people smuggling and irregular migration, along with their enablers,' Lammy said, referring to a legal framework introduced in January that allows for asset freezes and travel bans against those involved. The crackdown follows rising public concern over reports linking some migrants to violent incidents, including alleged sexual assaults. Protests have taken place across the UK, calling for stricter controls at asylum housing centers and greater transparency on offender status. According to the Home Office, nearly 20,000 people arrived in Britain via small boats in the first half of 2025, a 50% increase from 2024 and 75% higher than in 2023. Earlier this month, the UK and Germany agreed to strengthen migration cooperation. Berlin pledged to criminalize the storage of boats and engines intended for Channel crossings. The agreement also includes intelligence sharing and coordinated action against smuggling networks. A parallel deal with France allows the UK to return small-boat migrants in exchange for accepting an equal number of vetted asylum seekers through legal channels. In May, Prime Minister Keir Starmer proposed immigration reforms that include stricter English-language requirements, higher visa thresholds, and extending settlement periods to ten years. The plan, aimed at cutting legal migration by 100,000 annually, has not yet become law. The migrant crisis, fueled by conflict and poverty in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia, has been exacerbated by Western military interventions, prompting widespread displacement. The UK is also reportedly considering relocating rejected asylum seekers to 'return hubs' in Western Balkan countries, though no deals have been finalized. A similar plan involving Rwanda was dropped due to legal and political opposition.
BBC News
2 days ago
- Politics
- BBC News
BBC Verify Live: What impact could small boat sanctions have?
Update: Date: 10:58 BST Title: Fact-checking claims about small boats Content: Lucy GilderBBC Verify journalist People who cross the English Channel in small boats are yet again a big talking point, following the government's announcement of a sanctions policy against people smugglers. On Verify Live we'll be bringing you the latest analysis of small boat arrivals throughout the day and listening out to fact-check claims made by politicians. Small boat arrivals have reached a record high for this time in the year - as we've been monitoring in our asylum pledges tracker. The government publishes daily figures, external on the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats. As of 20 July, 23,534 people had arrived in the UK so far this year, up by about 50% on the same period last year. In addition, nearly 14,000 'preventions' have been recorded by French authorities in 2025. This a broad category that includes people prevented from crossing, people arrested for facilitating the crossings, and occasions when small boat equipment has been found. Update: Date: 10:17 BST Title: Tuesday's BBC Verify Live Content: Tom EdgingtonBBC Verify live editor Hello and welcome to today's BBC Verify Live page. This is what our fact-checkers and verification experts are prioritising this morning: Remember, if there's anything you want BBC Verify to look into you can get in touch using this form.
