Starmer says people smuggling should be seen as ‘global security threat similar to terrorism’ – UK politics live

Laura Trott appointed new shadow education secretary

Peter Walker

Laura Trott is the new shadow education secretary, in the first policy-based frontbench appointment under Kemi Badenoch.

While the bulk of her appointments will be made later, before tomorrow morning’s shadow cabinet meeting, Trott will appear for the Tories at education questions in the Commons at 2.30pm.

Joining her on the front bench will be Neil O’Brien, who will be number two in the education team.

Trott replaces Damian Hinds, who has been shadow education secretary since the general election. Hinds was education secretary between 2018 and 2019, and later served in government in more junior ministerial roles.

Badenoch has already announced her chief whip, Rebecca Harris, and two party co-chairs, Nigel Huddlestone and Dominic Johnson. (See 9.38am.)

Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers’ Union, has said that he has never known farmers to be as angry as they are about the changes to inheritance tax rules announced in the budget. And many “want to be militant”, he said.

He also said he does not accept government figures about the number of farming families that will be affected by the decision to apply inheritance tax to some farms.

He was speaking after a meeting with Steve Reed, the environment secretary, and James Murray, a Treasury minister, about the issue.

Last week the Treasury published a paper with figures purporting to show that 73% of farms would not be covered by the decision to apply inheritance tax to farms worth more than £1m.

But, speaking to PA Media after his meeting, Bradshaw said:

So, the Treasury is saying only 27% of farms will be within scope of these changes. [Defra, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’] own figures suggest that two-thirds of farms will be in scope.

How they can have that wide a discrepancy within government is quite unbelievable.

Bradshaw said Reed ruled out a change to the inheritance tax rules for farms before the election, and he said the decision was “completely unfair”. He went on:

I have never seen the weight of support, the strength of feeling and anger that there is in this industry today. Many of them want to be militant.

Now we are not encouraging that in any way shape or form but government need to understand that there is a real strength of feeling behind what this change means for the future of family farming in this country.

Bradshaw also said today’s meeting did not resolve the issue. “We’ll wait to hear from government and Treasury and see if we can get to a resolution,” he added.

Kemi Badenoch has told staff at the Conservative party’s HQ that they should experiment with doing things in new ways, according to the Guido Fawkes website. The website, which has good links with CCHQ, says Badenoch told staff that they could win the next election, that they should focus on principles, not policies (“freedom of speech, freedom of association, free enterprise, personal responsibility – what distinguishes us from all the parties of the left who think more government is the answer to everything”) and that they should be willing to innovate.

Don’t have to do things they way they’ve always been done. Time to try something different. Let your creative juices flow.

Starmer went on to say the government was “going to treat people smugglers like terrorists”. And he explained what that meant.

So we’re taking our approach to counter terrorism, which we know works, and apply it to the gangs with our new Border Security Command.

We’re ending the fragmentation between policing, Border Force and our intelligence agencies, recruiting hundreds of specialist investigators, the best of the best, from our National Crime Agency, Border Force, immigration enforcement and the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] and our intelligence agencies, all working together.

We are making border protection an elite Border Force, and not just within our country. We’re also working together with international partners, sharing intelligence and tactics.

Earlier this year, I visited the headquarters of our National Crime Agency. I saw first hand the ways we are already collaborating and what it takes to intercept, to disrupt and destroy these networks.

There are so many tools at our disposal. We could seize their phones at the border, identifying and tracing smugglers wiring payments. We’ve already trained sniffer dogs to detect the smell of dinghy rubber and, working with Bulgaria, stopped more than 100 small boats upstream long before they made it to the Channel.

And as we understand how these gangs work, we can invest in new capabilities and enhance powers to smash them.

So we’re giving our new Border Security Command an additional £75m pounds of new funding, on top of the £75m pounds we have already committed. This will support a new organized Immigration Crime Intelligence Unit, hundreds of new investigators and intelligence officers, backed by state of the art technology.

We are also investing a further £58m pounds in our National Crime Agency, including strengthening its data analysis and intelligence capabilities. And we’ll also legislate to give those fighting these gangs enhanced powers too.

Starmer said this approach worked with counter-terrorism operations.

We have the powers to trace suspects’ movements using information from the intelligence services.

We can shut down their bank accounts, cut off their internet access, and arrest them for making preparations to act before an attack has taken place.

We don’t wait for them to act. We stop them before they act.

And we need to stop people smuggling gangs before they act, too.

Starmer said the world needs to wake up to the severity of the threat posed by illegal migration. (See 9.13am.)

And he says he would work with “anyone seriuos” to address the problem.

I will work with anyone serious who could offer solutions of this, anyone, because without coordinated global action, it will not go away.

And unless we bring all the powers we have to bear on this in much the same way as we do for terrorism, then we will struggle to bring these criminals to justice.

And that, in a sense, is my message here today; people smuggling should be viewed as a global security threat similar to terrorism.

We’ve got to combine resources, share intelligence and tactics and tackle the problem upstream, working together to shut down the smuggling routes. We do that with terrorism.

When I was the director of public prosecutions, it was my personal mission to smash the terrorist gangs, and we worked across borders to ensure the safety of citizens across Europe and across the world.

Now, as the UK’s prime minister, it is my personal mission to smash the people smuggling gangs.

Starmer said that the new government was adopting this approach. Instead of “gimmicks” and “gesture politics”, it was “approaching this issue with humanity and with profound respect for international law”.

And it would not withdraw from the European convention on human rights, he said.

David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has said the concept of reparations for former British colonies affected by slavery should not be about cash payments.

Speaking to the BBC in Nigeria, where he is starting a tour of African countries, he said the reparations concept “is not about the transfer of cash”.

At the recent Commonwealth summit, Keir Starmer’s reluctance to talk about reparations led to complaints from other leaders who said the UK should be doing more to address the ongoing problems linked to the legacy of slavery. No 10 has ruled out cash reparations, even though when Lammy was a backbench MP he did express support for the idea.

Lammy told the BBC in Nigera that reparations were not about money, “particularly at a time of a cost of living crisis”.

Instead, the government is interested in other forms of reparatory justice.

Sir James Dyson, the entrepreneur, has written an article for the Times today accusing the government of “spiteful” changes to inheritance tax rules.

Farmers are furious because farms used to be exempt from inheritance tax, but under changes announced in the budget the 100% agricultural property relief (the exemption) will no longer apply on farms worth more than £1m. The government is also changing the rules on business property relief, which means that some shares in family businesses will no longer be exempt from inheritance tax.

In his article, Dyson condemns this as a “20% family death tax” and he claims this will lead to “the very fabric of our economy” being ripped apart. Pointing out that there are almost five million family firms in the UK, he says:

It beggars belief that Labour proudly boasts of trying to attract foreign investment, while at the same time eviscerating homegrown businesses. [Chancellor Rachel] Reeves killing off business property relief (originally introduced by a Labour government in 1976 and reinforced by the Brown government with entrepreneurs’ relief) means that British families are landed with an unpayable tax bill every time an owner dies.

Yet companies operating here but owned by overseas families won’t have to pay Labour’s tax. Private equity-owned firms won’t pay. Public companies listed on stock markets won’t pay. No, it is just homegrown, British family companies that will pay. This is a tragedy.

Make no mistake, the very fabric of our economy is being ripped apart. No business can survive Reeves’s 20 per cent tax grab. It will be the death of entrepreneurship. Think of the jobs for “working people” that will be lost — or never created …

Every business expects to pay tax, but for Labour to kill off homegrown family businesses is a tragedy. In particular, I have huge empathy for the small businesses and start-ups that will suffer.

Labour has shown its true colours with a spiteful budget. It detests the private sector and has chosen to kill off individual aspiration and economic growth.

Dyson became a billionaire through the firm selling his eponymous vacuum cleaner and other inventions, but he also has a large farming business in the UK. In his article he acknowledges that his family would lose out from Labour tax changes, but he does not say by how much.

In an interview with Times Radio, asked about Dyson’s article, Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, said she “clearly” disagreed with his claim that Labour hated the private sector. She said the budget involved “difficult’” decisions, but that they were necessary.

I think this was a budget that had to do three things. It had to deal with the public finance chaos that we inherited and had to put the public finances back on track. That’s fixing the foundations as Rachel has described it. Also make sure that we’ve got plans to boost growth for the future … And then thirdly, to make sure that we can start to repair the deep damage to our public services and particularly our national health service, which I am deeply worried about.

In order to do all of those things and to deal with that inherited chaos that we had, that has meant some difficult decisions, including on employers’ national insurance contributions. But it’s also been done in a way to protect people’s pay slips and you’ve got no increase in the national insurance for employees.

Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has been doing an interview round this morning ahead of the PM’s speech to the Interpol general assembly later. In an interview with LBC, she condemned the Labour MP Dawn Butler for sharing a tweet describing Kemi Badenoch as “the most prominent member of white supremacy’s black collaborator class”.

Cooper said she had not seen the tweet, which Butler quickly deleted. But she said:

The words that you have read out are clearly appalling and I would strongly disagree with them.

So, I haven’t seen the post. I don’t know the circumstances around it but I think we should congratulate Kemi Badenoch on her election.

I will continue to disagree with her on all sorts of issues, but, nevertheless, I congratulate her on her election.

Asked if Butler should be disciplined by the party over the tweet, Cooper said that was a matter for the whip.

Kemi Badenoch, the new Conservative leader, has already made some appointment.

Rebecca Harris has become the new chief whip. This was announced yesterday, but the outgoing chief whip, Stuart Andrew, who posted these on social media.

It has been an honour and a privilege to serve as the Conservative Party Chief Whip. @RebeccaHarrisMP is a great friend and a brilliant Whip. I wish her all the best in the role.

I would like to thank the Whips and the MP’s that have helped the Whip’s Office for their dedication and assistance in helping me steady the ship over the past three months.

At an uncertain time for our Party it has been challenging at times, but we have kept the show on the road and had some great successes.

And Badenoch has appointed two Conservative co-chairs, PA Media reports. They are Nigel Huddleston, a former Treasury minister, and Dominic Johnson, a hedge fund manager (he ran an investment firm with Jacob Rees-Mogg) who was given a peerage and made a business minister when Liz Truss was PM.

It is normal for the Conservative party to have two co-chairs – one an MP, focusing on presentation and party management, and another focusing on fund raising.

Often a new opposition leader announces the new shadow chancellor first but, as Dan Bloom explains in his London Playbook briefing for Politico, there is a reason why it makes sense to start with choosing a new chief whip.

News that Badenoch had appointed Rebecca Harris as chief whip emerged because Harris will be helping Badenoch make the other appointments, two people tell Playbook. One said: “There’s a lot of knowledge in the whips’ function as the HR department of the party — who’s reliable, who turns up, who is a good colleague.” Best behaviour!

“Who’s reliable, who turns up, who is a good colleague?” Badenoch should find out what the Tory whips used to say about her. As Eleni Courea reports, on these criteria, some of her colleagues would not rate her highly.

Good morning. Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organisation, which has 196 member countries, has a general assembly and, for the first time in 50 years, it is meeting in Britain. Keir Starmer will address the meeting in Glasgow and he is going to deliver a “wake up” call on illegal migration, saying that the world needs to face up to the scale of the problem and that tackling the problem needs to be internationalised. Britain cannot do it on its own, he implies.

According to extracts from the speech released in advance, Starmer will say:

The world needs to wake up to the severity of this challenge. I was elected to deliver security for the British people. And strong borders are a part of that. But security doesn’t stop at our borders.

There’s nothing progressive about turning a blind eye as men, women and children die in the channel.

This is a vile trade that must be stamped out – wherever it thrives. So we’re taking our approach to counter-terrorism – which we know works, and applying it to the gangs, with our new Border Security Command.

We’re ending the fragmentation between policing, Border Force and our intelligence agencies.

In the headline of its news release, No 10 describes people smuggling as a “national security threat”. Rajeev Syal has a full preview of the speech here.

You might think some of this language might appeal to the Conservatives. Like Starmer, Kemi Badenoch, the new opposition leader, also believes that the previous government failed on illegal migration. But the Tories are saying Labour’s approach will not work because there is no deterrent. Badenoch is appointing a shadow cabinet today, and so there is no proper shadow home secretary in place this morning (James Cleverly is stepping down), but last night CCHQ put out this statement from a party spokesperson.

Keir Starmer’s announcement on tackling gangs will mean absolutely nothing without a deterrent to stop migrants wishing to make the dangerous journey across the channel.

It is a shame that Starmer has not recognised the extent of the crisis in the channel sooner, as he and the Labour party voted against numerous measures to stop the gangs while they were in opposition.

If Starmer continues to ignore the need for a deterrent to stop migrants crossing the channel, there will be more deaths in the channel as more and more migrants continue to cross it, he needs to get a grip of the crisis in the channel.

(Some experts in this field prefer to use the term irregular migration, not illegal migration, to describe people crossing the Channel in small boats because claiming asylum is not illegal under international law and, even though UK law says it is an offence to enter the country without proper authorisation, people who claim asylum don’t get prosecuted. But the government is using the term illegal migration, as the previous government did.)

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Kemi Badenoch, the new Conservative leader, is due to meet party staff at CCHQ this morning. She will also be working on shadow cabinet appointments.

11am: Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, is speaking at the Interpol conference in Glasgow, ahead of Keir Starmer who is delivering a speech too.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

Morning: Steve Reed, the environment secretary, is due to meet the NFU leader Tom Bradshaw to discuss the budget plans to ensure that some farms are subject will be subject to inheritance tax.

2.30pm: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

After 3.30pm: Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, is opening for the government in the resumed budget debate.

If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.

If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. I’m still using X and I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly. I’m also trying Bluesky (@andrewsparrowgdn) and Threads (@andrewsparrowtheguardian).

I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.