The UK says it will sanction those who enable migrant journeys across the English Channel
The U.K. said the new powers target smugglers and those who supply them with money and equipment. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the measures are 'the world's first sanctions regime targeted at gangs involved in people smuggling and driving irregular migration, as well as their enablers.'
Those in breach of the rules can have U.K. assets seized, be barred from using British banks and be banned from entering Britain. The first sanctions under the new powers are due to be announced on Wednesday, the Foreign Office said.
The government said the new rules are authorized by existing sanctions legislation. British lawmakers won't get a chance to debate them until they return from a summer break in September.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour Party government has pledged to stop criminal gangs sending thousands of migrants each year on perilous journeys across one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. Starmer has said the crime gangs are a threat to global security and should be treated like terror networks.
It's unclear how effective the measures will be, since British authorities can only freeze assets that are in the United Kingdom, and most of the smugglers are based elsewhere.
Sanctions are one tool in an arsenal of measures that includes beefed-up U.K. border surveillance and increased law-enforcement cooperation with France and other countries.
So far the moves have had little impact. Some 37,000 people crossed the channel in 2024, and more than 22,000 so far in 2025 – an increase of about 50% from the same period last year. Dozens of people have died attempting the journey.
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'Just like the White House itself, our Oval Office is a living space, so it changes and evolves as the actual Oval Office changes,' Stewart McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Association, said. The mock-up is inside 'The People's House: A White House Experience,' an educational center the association opened last year one block west of the Executive Mansion. John Michael Cannette,10, right, of Sumrall, Miss., sits behind the Resolute desk as White House Historical Association President Stewart McLaurin, left, talks to a group of tourists, during work to transition a replica of the White House Oval Office from the days of former President Joe Biden with President Donald Trump's decor, at the White House Historical Association in Washington, Wednesday, July 23, 2025. Photo by Rod Lamkey / AP Few regular people ever see, let alone step inside, the real Oval Office, for security and other reasons. But the true-to-life model offers visitors a chance to see and experience it. It will be updated to match the decor of every sitting president. Plan your next getaway with Travel Time, featuring travel deals, destinations and gear. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. When the historical association opened the center last year, the replica Oval Office looked like Democrat Joe Biden's office because he was the president at the time. The association has to get copies made of every item in the real Oval Office and that process takes time, McLaurin said. He also preferred to wait until there was a 'critical mass' of items instead of doing a slow, piece-by-piece makeover. Trump decorated his first-term Oval Office with a beige-patterned rug from the Ronald Reagan era, gold-colored draperies from Bill Clinton's tenure and a lighter, floral wallpaper that replaced a striped wall covering installed by his predecessor, Barack Obama. 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