LABOUR boasts of an immigration crackdown and plans for sweeping new seize and search powers set a “dangerous precedent” and embolden the far right, campaigners warn. 

Ahead of a crunch parliamentary vote on their Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill today, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s government has gone on the offensive, trumpeting thousands of arrests of exploited “illegal” migrants made since assuming office in July.

Between polling day and January 31 2025, 5,424 visits were made by immigration officers to workplaces across the country, leading to 3,930 arrests — numbers they proudly proclaim to be 38 per cent higher than a year earlier.

Hailing a record 609 arrests in January alone — almost twice the tally of 352 a year earlier under ther Tories — Labour Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the government was boosting enforcement to “record levels.”

She said: “The immigration rules must be respected and enforced.

“For far too long, employers have been able to take on and exploit illegal migrants and too many people have been able to arrive and work illegally with no enforcement action ever taken.”

Ms Cooper’s comments come as MPs prepare to vote on the new Bill, which will grant police and border officers counter-terror-style powers to seize and search even before an arrest, and leave anyone selling or handling boat parts used to cross the Channel illegally facing a 14-year prison sentence.

Those at sea found to have endangered life on such crossings meanwhile face just five years.

Human rights group Liberty slammed Sir Keir for following US President Trump’s lead in using anti-terror power to tackle non-terror offences as a “dangerous precedent” that left few safeguards against people being prosecuted “needlessly.”

Despite the government’s stated aim of targeting human traffickers growing rich from crowding desperate people onto dinghies across the Channel, the new legislation does not provide for new safe routes to claim aslylum.

International Rescue Committee UK’s Denisa Delic warned this will mean “vulnerable people will continue to be forced into the hands of smugglers and even more dangerous routes as their only option for seeking protection.”

Asylum support group Care4Calais CEO Steve Smith said: “This is not change. It is more of the same.

“For years, the sole focus of the UK and French governments has been on border security and deterrence, and for years nothing has changed.

“There is only one way to end Channel crossings and save lives, and that’s to create safe routes for refugees to claim asylum in the UK.

“Continuing to ignore this reality is a dereliction of duty and a failure on the part of the Labour government to offer change as it promised.”

For Sir Keir’s predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, the plans to tackle people-trafficking were not only doomed to failure but were borne of a misguided attempt by a panicked Labour leadership to triangulate its way out of the electoral threat posed by Reform and the far right.

The independent MP for Islington North called for the government to challenge the “anti-migrant rhetoric” of the far right rather than pander to it.

He told the Morning Star: “I was proud to be elected by my constituents on a platform that recognised the contribution of migrants to this country and defended the human rights of refugees.

“Our message to the government is clear: indulging in anti-migrant rhetoric will not defeat the far-right. It will embolden them.

“Where is the government’s gratitude for the generations of migrants who built our public services? Where is [the government’s] humanity for those fleeing war and persecution?

“Another path is possible: build lasting support for an immigration system based on respect, dignity and care. One that actually tackles human trafficking through the only means of undermining the market: the provision of safe routes.”

The SNP is challenging Scottish Labour MPs to back its amendment to reintroduce a Scottish graduate visa scheme to allow overseas students to stay on in Scotland after they finish their studies.

 SNP Westminster deputy leader Pete Wishart said: “We have a Bill at Westminster which dances to Nigel Farage’s tune, continuing to demonise people fleeing war and persecution and signalling that Labour have weakly signed up to the right-wing Westminster consensus on migration.

“Scottish Labour MPs must drop the right-wing rhetoric.”