LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Keir Starmer He said he would double funding for Britain’s border security agency and treat people-smuggling gangs as terrorist networks in a bid to stop migrants Crossing the English Channel with small boats.

In his speech at the meeting of the international police organization on Monday InterpolStarmer will say the gangs behind irregular migration pose a serious threat to global security.

Arguing that “the world needs to recognize the seriousness of this challenge,” Starmer will say, “we are taking the approach we know works on counter-terrorism and applying it to gangs.” office.

It would call for greater cooperation among law enforcement, closer coordination with other countries and unspecified “enhanced” powers for law enforcement.

Starmer plans to increase the UK Border Security Command’s two-year budget from 75 million pounds ($97 million) to 150 million pounds ($194 million). The money will be used to fund high-tech surveillance equipment and 100 specialist researchers.

Like previous Conservative British governments, Starmer’s Labor administration is scrambling to stop thousands of people fleeing war and poverty trying to reach the UK from France on flimsy, overcrowded boats.

So far this year, more than 31,000 migrants have perilously crossed one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. More than in all of 2023Although less than in 2022. At least 56 people He lost his life in the attempts According to French officials, 2024 is the deadliest year since 2018, when the number of canal crossings began to increase.

Starmer leads a centre-left government and raised some eyebrows in September when he visited Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and praised the “remarkable” progress his nationalist conservative government had made in reducing job numbers. Migrants reached the shores of Italy by boat.

Starmer will argue on Monday that there is “nothing progressive about turning a blind eye while men, women and children die on the channel”.

The opposition Conservative Party argues that Starmer should not cancel the previous government’s plan to send some refugees who reached the UK by boat. One way trips to Rwanda. Supporters of the proposal say it would act as a deterrent. Human rights groups and many lawyers say it is unethical and unlawful to send immigrants thousands of kilometers to a country where they do not want to live.

Starmer described the plan as a “gimmick” and canceled it soon after being elected in July. Britain had paid hundreds of millions of pounds to Rwanda without any deportation, as part of the agreement signed between the two countries in 2022.

Senior police and government officials from Interpol’s 196 member countries are attending the global policing agency’s four-day congress in Glasgow, Scotland.

On Tuesday, Brazilian police official Valdecy Urquiza is expected to be appointed as the new general secretary of the Lyon, France-based organization, replacing Germany’s Jürgen Stock.

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