Keir Starmer has repeatedly promised to smash the gangs to secure our borders. But the reality is rather different. Yesterday, the Prime Minister tweeted a short clip once again attempting to reassure British voters that the government is ‘going to the source to smash the people smuggling gangs’. The video is an odd, cheap thing. Set to possibly the most generic soundtrack available and voiced over by an utterly bored-sounding young man, it shows images of small boats full of migrants, foreign police, and open water. Eye-catchingly, it promises to reveal just ‘how we’re controlling our borders’. Unfortunately, almost every single claim it makes is misleading or laughable.
The narrator tells us that the government is ‘working with our international allies to smash people smuggling gangs for good’ and that ‘hundreds of boats and engines have been seized’. ‘Since July we have returned nearly 30,000 people with no right to be here,’ he continues.
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