BRITAIN gave people-smuggling gangs an “open invitation” to send migrants across the Channel, Sir Keir Starmer blasted.
The PM said the country’s broken border system made it easy for criminals to “crack on” with illegal crossings.
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And he admitted working people are right to find it unfair that Britain has been a “soft touch” for illegal migrants.
Opening the UK’s first ever Organised Immigration Crime Summit in London, he said: “Illegal migration is a massive driver of global insecurity.
“It undermines our ability to control who comes here and that makes people angry. It makes me angry, frankly.
“Because it is unfair on ordinary working people who pay the price, from the cost of hotels, to our public services struggling under the strain.”
He blamed the Tories for failing to prevent people-smuggling gangs targeting the UK.
Sir Keir said: “We inherited this total fragmentation between our policing, our Border Force and our intelligence agencies.
“A fragmentation that made it crystal clear, when I looked at it, that there were gaps in our defence, an open invitation at our borders for the people smugglers to crack on.
“To be honest, it should have been fixed years ago.”
He said the Government’s Border Security Command would help address those gaps.
The PM also said there is “little that strikes working people as more unfair than watching illegal migration drive down their wages, their terms and their conditions through illegal work in their community.”
Taking aim at the Tories once again, he blasted: “Whilst the last Government were busy with their Rwanda gimmick, they left the door wide open for illegal working, especially in short term or zero hours, roles like construction, beauty salons and courier services.
“Whilst, of course, most companies do the responsible thing and carry out Right to Work checks, too many dodgy firms have been exploiting a loophole to skip this process, hiring illegal workers, undercutting honest businesses, driving down the wages of ordinary working people.
“And all of this, of course, fuelling that poisonous narrative of the gangs who promised a dream of a better life to vulnerable people, yet deliver a nightmare of squalid conditions and appalling exploitation.”
He vowed a new crackdown on rogue employers – with a tough law to force firms to carry out Right to Work checks.
Sir Keir went on: “Failure to comply will result in fines of up to £60,000, prison terms of up to five years, and the potential closure of their businesses.”
Leaders and ministers from 40 countries – including France, the US and China – gathered for the two-day summit.
Officials from Albania, Vietnam and Iraq, from where many migrants have reached Britain, are also in attendance.
Ministers marked the opening of the summit with a range of new policy measures, including £30m to tackle global trafficking routes and the flows of illicit money which fund them.
A further £3m will go to the Crown Prosecution Service to help it expand its international work.
