REFUGEE experts rubbished new diplomatic and financial measures to tackle people-smuggling gangs today.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy said his department, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), is “critical” to “prevent, combat, deter and disrupt irregular migration.”

He said Britain must use “our sharpest diplomatic weapons to help restore control” to borders.

“A realistic strategy involves transactional, hard-headed diplomacy, and to agree with partners, smart interventions at every stage along the international people-smuggling pathway,” he said in a speech in London.

The government also announced the introduction of the world’s first standalone sanctions regime dedicated to targeting irregular migration and organised immigration crime.

The sanctions plans have not yet been finalised but Mr Lammy suggested that manufacturers of engines used on small boats to cross the Channel could be among those in line for financial sanctions under the new regime.

Freedom from Torture’s Sile Reynolds said: “Every day in our therapy rooms up and down the country, we hear about the unimaginable horrors that have caused men, women and children to flee their home countries.

“While torture continues, and while safe routes to sanctuary in places like the UK remain inadequate and inaccessible, people will continue to seek out any assistance they can to cross borders.

“Smuggling gangs will simply adapt to the new control measures the government is looking to introduce, as they have always done, and continue to provide their services to desperate people.”

She added: “We know only too well that cracking down on the methods refugees use to escape persecution, instead of holding states accountable for their failure to protect their own people, only serves to make the journeys more dangerous for the refugees involved.” 

Care4Calais CEO Steve Smith said: “This is not ‘change.’ It’s repetition of the sort of rhetoric about border security we heard from the last Tory government, which didn’t stop crossings and resulted in 2024 being the deadliest year on record for deaths in the English Channel. 

“If politicians want to stop crossings and save lives the answer is simple — open safe routes to claim asylum. It would stop the crossings, and Channel deaths, overnight. The Labour government promised change, why won’t they get on with delivering it with safe routes?”