Home Office ramps up small boats gangs crackdown with £100million cash boost

Border security will be beefed up with a £100million boost to crack down on vile people smuggling gangs.

The funding will pay for up to 300 additional National Crime Agency officers, new detection technology and equipment to smash the criminal networks bringing desperate people to Britain in small boats.

The cash will also fund a pilot of the ‘one-in, one-out’ returns deal with France, which will see migrants who arrive illegally in dinghies sent back across the Channel for the first time. It comes after Nigel Farage appearances on Sky News sparked thousands of complaints.

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Overtime will be ramped up for enforcement teams and more funding for interventions across Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia to disrupt smuggling routes.

Ministers are battling to drive down small boat crossings, which have exceeded 25,000 so far this year - a record for this point in the summer.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: "For six years, the small boat smuggling gangs were allowed to embed their criminal trade along our coast, and have shown a ruthless ability to adapt their tactics and maximise their profits, no matter how many lives they put at risk. They must not be allowed to get away with this vile crime.

“That is why this government has developed a serious and comprehensive plan to dismantle their business model, from disrupting their supply chains across the European continent to clamping down on their illegal working operations here in the UK."

Ms Cooper will unveil plans in the autumn to overhaul the appeals system to slash the spiralling backlog and reduce the number of asylum seekers in hotels.

As of March, there were 50,976 outstanding appeals - nearly double the number in 2024 and seven times higher than in 2023.

The Home Secretary wants decisions to be made in weeks rather than months, as the average wait to hear appeals is 54 weeks.

She told the Sunday Times: “We need a major overhaul of the appeal [process] and that’s what we are going to do in the autumn … if we speed up the decision-making appeal system and also then keep increasing returns, we hope to be able to make quite a big reduction in the overall numbers in the asylum system, because that is the best way to actually restore order and control.”

It comes amid a wave of anti-immigration protests as asylum hotels become a flashpoint for community tensions

Demonstrators clashed with police outside a hotel housing migrants in north London on Saturday, while hundreds of people took part in a demo organised by far-right group Britain First in Manchester.

On Sunday, the police watchdog warned there is "every possibility" of a repeat of the unrest that broke out last summer in the wake of the Southport murders.

His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services Sir Andy Cooke said the "tools that amplified hatred last summer remain largely unchanged and unregulated".

He said: "The police service should not be caught off-guard again. There is every possibility that similar violence could reoccur.

"Online misinformation continues to spread. Community tensions persist. The tools that amplified hatred last summer remain largely unchanged and unregulated.

"The police service must modernise its understanding of how disorder develops and spreads in the digital age."

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