SIR KEIR STARMER faced a backlash from refugee groups today after claiming a lack of co-ordination on illegal migration has given people-smugglers an “open invitation” to send migrants to Britain.

The Prime Minister said that he was “shocked” at the fragmentation between police, Border Force and intelligence agencies as he convened an anti-immigration summit at Lancaster House involving 40 countries.

Opening the summit, he said: “Illegal migration is a massive driver of global insecurity. It undermines our ability to control who comes here, and that makes people angry.

“It makes me angry, frankly, because it’s unfair on ordinary working people who pay the price — from the cost of hotels, to our public services struggling under the strain.

“And it’s unfair on the illegal migrants themselves, because these are vulnerable people being ruthlessly exploited by vile gangs.”

He insisted his approach to tackling the problem with international allies was starting to bear fruit, but was accused by unions, refugee charities and employment experts of missing the point.

The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, which represents Border Force workers, has long campaigned for safe routes to allow refugees to claim asylum on arrival in Britain.

Last month, it launched a new report in Parliament that said a Ukrainian-style visa system would prevent deaths in the Channel and destroy smuggling gangs overnight.

PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said: “Our members are the first port of call for dealing with the crossings and the government can learn from their experiences.

“The answer is to adopt, or at the very least trial, our safe routes policy, based on the Ukrainian-style visa system of assessing claims after people have arrived in the UK.

“It would destroy smuggling gangs overnight by taking away the need for refugees to take risks crossing the Channel, reducing crossings to almost zero.”

Refugee Council CEO Enver Solomon warned that enforcement strategies alone will never work.

“When a refugee is clambering into a boat with an armed criminal threatening them, they are not thinking about UK laws but are simply trying to stay alive,” he said.

“The most effective way to break the smuggling gangs’ grip is to stop refugees from getting into the boats in the first place.

“This can be done by giving people a legal way to apply for asylum in the UK without ever having to face a deadly journey across the Channel.

“This is the most cost-effective way of dealing with asylum applications, as well as the most humane.

“It would also provide meaningful support to help refugees integrate into their communities and contribute to Britain.”

Associate director of advocacy at Freedom from Torture Natasha Tsangarides blasted the summit as “a wasted opportunity to do what is really needed.”

“Put simply, whilst torture exists and in the absence of accessible safe routes, smugglers will continue to provide a service to vulnerable people who need a place of sanctuary,” she warned.

Ms Tsangarides called for international collaboration to end the torture and persecution that forces people to flee their homes in the first place, and to reinforce the global systems that guarantee their safety.

Care4Calais CEO Steve Smith bemoaned “the international air miles, carbon emissions, and the expensive hospitality laid on for this ‘summit,’ when all the delegates from 40 or so countries need to do to upend smugglers’ business model is offer safe routes for refugees to claim asylum in their countries.

“A solution so simple, effective and low cost it shouldn’t take an international summit for these ‘expert’ delegates to come up with,” he said. 

New amendments to the government’s Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill are set to widen the right-to-work scheme for gig economy workers not currently covered by existing laws.

The Worker Info Exchange non-profit, which campaigns to give workers access and gain insight from data collected from them at work, warned that these regulations “deliberately leave wide gaps to allow gig economy employers to continue to ride a coach and horses through them.”

“The government, in an overzealous effort to demonise migrant workers to appease the far right, seems all too happy to facilitate platforms to bend and break employment law, so long as they support the government’s war on migrant workers,” it said.