Home Office crackdown on social media adverts for Channel crossings only targets 'small players', experts warn

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced plans to create a new offence under the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill which would outlaw the promise of illegal working being promoted online.

Annette Idler, Director of the Global Security Programme, said that while it sounds promising, "we need to think about how this is actually going to be enforced".

She told LBC's Matthew Wright: "Because often, or most of the time, the content is being produced abroad."

"The government can only deal with the perpetrators when they are in the UK," she said.

While she has doubts the government will be able to enforce their plans, Ms Idler suggested partnerships with other countries could be used, as they have been previously.

She said: "[The government] for example, partnered with Vietnam, with Albania, with the Kurdistan region of Iraq in order to just start campaigns to raise awareness about the dangers also of the smuggling journey.

"But then we also need to think about who are the people who are actually producing that content."

She said those producing the content are in a way "cannon fodder".

"They are very small players in this really huge illicit economy. It's a huge business. They are the ones that can be very easily replaced.

"So what we really need to think about is, well, not just thinking what can we do to just ban those ads, which again will produce numbers, but what can we actually do to change the outcome.

"And that means we need to think about how to actually target the big, the large intermediaries, the brokers, the heads of those gangs."

Read more: Nine arrested as anti-asylum protesters and counter groups face-off outside London migrant hotel

Read more: Yvette Cooper unveils fast-track asylum plan to tackle backlog with refugees' appeals heard 'within weeks'

Former UK Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, John Vine CBE QPM, similarly questioned whether the government's latest announcement will have any impact.

Mr Vine called the latest announcement "overkill" in terms of lawmaking, suggesting it was "perhaps in order to show activity in dealing with something that they know people are very, very concerned about at the moment".

He suggested: "There needs to be a disincentive for migrants to come to the UK in the first place, which is something I've been talking about for quite some time."

Mr Vine said: "People want to make a better life for themselves and they see if they can't have the opportunities in their own country, they see those opportunities elsewhere.

"And of course with social media and with the Internet now, of course it's much easier for people to see what other people have and say, well I'd like to go there with my family and make a new future there.

"But it also enables them to access both legitimate and illegitimate means of getting there."

The government is under pressure to speed up asylum processing and bring down small boat crossings, with arrivals passing more than 25,000 for 2025 so far on Wednesday – a record for this point in the year.

Assisting illegal immigration to the UK is already a crime, but officials believe a new offence will give more powers to police and other agencies to disrupt criminal gangs.

Around 80% of migrants arriving to the UK by small boat told officials they used social media during their journey, including to contact agents linked to people smuggling gangs, according to analysis by the Home Office.

“Selling the false promise of a safe journey to the UK and a life in this country – whether on or offline – simply to make money, is nothing short of immoral,” the Home Secretary said.

“These criminals have no issue with leading migrants to life-threatening situations using brazen tactics on social media. We are determined to do everything we can to stop them, wherever they operate.”