LONDON — The U.K. has announced a deal with Turkey aimed at disrupting smuggling gangs organizing small boat Channel crossings.
Announcing the agreement Wednesday morning, the Home Office said U.K. and Turkish law enforcement officers will “step up joint operations” in an attempt to disrupt the supply of boat parts and other materials used by asylum seekers to make the journey to England.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made “stopping the boats” one of his five key priorities, with tens of thousands of asylum seekers now making the dangerous journey every year.
His team see the issue as a key dividing line with the opposition Labour Party ahead of next year’s general election. Sunak’s Conservatives are currently trailing Labour 19 percentage points in the polls. The government has amplified its various efforts to curb cross-Channel migration, most recently by moving a handful — accounting for fewer than 1 percent of Britain’s asylum backlog — of asylum seekers onto a large floating barge moored off England’s south coast.
The deal with Turkey will see an operational “centre of excellence” established by the Turkish national police, who will work with Britain’s National Crime Agency to disrupt small boat supply chains. The NCA believes many small boats which set sail for the U.K. originate in Turkey.
“Turkey’s geopolitical position on the cusp of Europe and Asia, with the biggest and the most utilized land border … means that it is absolutely critical that we work with them to share intelligence, to share people and technology to keep both countries safer and to disrupt the flow of illegal migrants,” Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick told the BBC’s Today program.
