ALAN MENDOZA: If Starmer really wants to stop illegal migrants, he should encourage the rest of the EU to follow Germany and bring back borders

When the ultimately fruitless preparations for Priti Patel's Rwanda deportation scheme were at their height in the summer of 2022, mutinous Home Office civil servants posted 'refugees welcome' stickers around their offices. According to a press release on the gov.uk website, the BSC will 'unlock sophisticated new technology and extra capabilities for the National Crime Agency to disrupt the criminal people-smuggling gangs' Indeed, some argue that the BSC – led by former police chief Martin Hewitt – is a job-retention scheme to offer employment to civil servants left with nothing to do following the scrapping of the Rwanda scheme. Its budget does not even consist of new money, merely cash redirected from the Conservative government's Illegal Migration Act coffers, despite Labour giving us the false impression that it is the product of additional funding. According to a press release on the gov.uk website, the BSC will 'unlock sophisticated new technology and extra capabilities for the National Crime Agency to disrupt the criminal people-smuggling gangs'. The technology employed includes covert cameras and monitoring equipment and we are promised that Commander Hewitt's team will 'improve intelligence collection across UK police forces', 'speed up investigations and increase the likelihood of successful prosecutions', 'intensify efforts in transit countries to prevent small boat equipment reaching the French coast' and 'swiftly bring those responsible to justice'.