How Keir Starmer rejected Tony Blair's idea to tackle small boats crisis - analysis by Katherine Forster

Former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair is advocating for compulsory digital ID cards, saying they would act as a deterrent to those coming or staying in the country illegally.

Sir Keir Starmer met with Italian PM Georgia Meloni in Rome yesterday and discussed how she has cut illegal migration by 60 per cent in the last year.

In a lobby huddle with political journalists before boarding the plane home to London, GB News asked if the PM would rule out bringing in compulsory ID while PM, given that the ability to disappear and work in the black economy is a pull factor in encouraging migrants to come here.

He replied: “We’re not looking at plans for ID cards but the point about labour market enforcement is really important. We need more labour market enforcement because too many people are working unlawfully within our system and we need to be much stricter on that.”

Starmer added: “One of the ways we’ve dealt with this is is making clear that any business that’s found breaking labour market rules in relation to people who shouldn’t be working there will be disbarred from getting people in under visas.”

He also cited inspections as another way the government can crack down on those working illegally.

The government’s new Border Security Commander Martin Hewitt talked in Rome of the importance of a deterrent.

Much of the government’s plan to tackle the crisis centres round their pledge to “smash the gangs” making money off human misery and operating through multiple countries. So stopping people from getting to the Channel in the first place.

The previous government’s Rwanda scheme was designed largely to deter migrants from coming to the UK, but one of the first acts of the incoming Labour government was to ditch the plan, which Starmer called “a gimmick”.

The PM says processing people more quickly and removing them promptly if their asylum claims fail is a deterrent.

The urgency of the issue came into stark focus last weekend, when 801 migrants arrived on Saturday, and eight men tragically died. As the death toll in the Channel this year hit 45, six people were taken to hospital, including a ten month old baby.

Today it emerged that over 10,000 illegal migrants have crossed the Channel since Labour came to power just over two months ago.

23,500 have made the crossing this year.

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Italy has succeeded in slashing the numbers arriving in small boats, largely by doing financial deals with countries like Tunisia and Libya, from where many of the people crossing into Europe via the Mediterranean set off.

In a press conference yesterday in Rome, Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni said of the country’s new deal with Albania: "The UK has shown great interest in this agreement.”

The scheme, to use third-country processing for the first time in Europe, has gathered much coverage, though the first migrants are yet to be sent.

But, beginning in the coming weeks, up to 3,000 male migrants per month could be sent to Albania for their claims to asylum in Italy to be processed. If they are successful, they would then be allowed to stay in Italy. The processing and operation would be on Albanian soil, but overseen by Italian officials.

Despite scrapping the Rwanda scheme, Sir Keir Starmer has not ruled out using a third country for off-shore processing.