>> good morning. it's 930 on monday the 30th of december. live across the united kingdom. this is britain's newsroom with me, charlie peters and me. >> sophie reaper. >> sophie reaper. >> now 300 migrants crossed the channel yesterday as three died off the coast of france. >> the government say smuggling gangs are responsible for the tragedy. >> america is in mourning as former us president jemmy carter has died at the age of 100. >> joe biden has praised the one term 39th president as a man of principle, faith and humility, while donald trump stated americans owe him a debt of gratitude. >> and tours, trials and

triumphs. how harry and meghan fared in 2024. >> hello and welcome. this is britain's newsroom live across the uk on gb news with charlie peters and me sophie reaper. >> now 300 migrants crossed the channel yesterday on the day that three died off the coast of france. >> french authorities confirmed 45 people were rescued after struggling to board a small boat bound for the uk. >> now the border security and asylum minister, dame angela eagle, has said that ruthless criminals were responsible for overloading the boats. >> but who is really to blame now.7 obviously >> but who is really to blame now? obviously on christmas day, charlie and i were here and we were speaking to our homeland security editor, mark white. he was telling us about those red days where we've seen we would have seen an influx of migrants.

it is interesting, isn't it, to see how many come over at this time of year because of the weather? >> yeah, we were told in the days before that thousands were waiting on the north coast of france. but clearly weather is an impact. but how much is government policy? and joining us now to discuss this is the former government senior special advisor james former government senior special advisorjames price. former government senior special advisor james price. james, thanks very much for joining us on britain's newsroom. we're being told today that the home office is spending £15 million on new satellites to monitor channel crossings, so doing plenty of monitoring. but what are they doing to stop the crossings? >> it's a very good question, isn't it? it sounds like a classic thing that civil servants have brought to ministers. look, we've got this cool, exciting new technology. we can use, cutting edge satellites and all this sort of stuff. i'm not necessarily against that, not least because i think we're all big kids and who like exciting new technologies. but it shouldn't be a distraction from the main bread and butter of trying to deal with this issue. and as you say, what's the point in

monitoring it happening if you're not going to do anything about it? the problem is not our ability to be able to see people coming over. it's not even the physical inability of the british state to be able to stop these people. you know, we have these people. you know, we have the royal navy that managed to hold back the armada, napoleon, hitler, you know, you name it. it's the legal problems that we've got here at home. the fact that we have imported rules from the continent, from the echr into british domestic law that are preventing us from doing this, a big thicket of lefty lawyers and other types like that, who are stopping us from being able to do what's necessary to deter people. and of course, the fact that once they get here, they're treated so much better and given so many more nice goodies and hotel rooms and free mobile phones and spending money and all this kind of stuff, which is the reason why these people are leaving france. a perfectly safe country and risking very dangerous weather conditions to get here. >> james, obviously this government has only been in for a matter of months. do you think we've given them enough time to

really have any kind of an impact, or do you think they really should be getting on with this now? >> there's plenty of things they should be getting on with. they seem to be consistently distracted by things that don't either don't matter, or that are making the situation across the country much worse. and i think this is one example. first of all, they obviously scrapped the rwanda policy. that would have been, i think, a very strong deterrent. of course, it wouldn't have been enough on its own. of course, you can't send all the people who are crossing over there, but if you think that you might get sent off to rwanda, then that will be a deterrent for many people. and more than that, they scrapped a rule that the conservatives had put in that said that if you enter this country illegally, you will never, under any circumstances be allowed to settle here. now, that was a really powerful incentive to stop people coming over. they've got rid of all of that because i think fundamentally, at root, the people in whose interests they're really running the country, whether it's trade unions or whether it's gangs of leftie lawyers who are keir starmers mates and people like that, they're perfectly happy to

have huge numbers of young. some would even call it fighting age males coming over here claiming lots and lots of taxpayer's cash, and fundamentally starting to change the nature of the united kingdom. most of us are not happy with that, and the fact that they haven't had any seeming influence on smashing the gangs as they talked so tough about during the election. we can see how many tens of thousands of people have come into this country illegally waiting to be processed. and of course, they'll say that they're either underage when they're clearly not. they'll say that they are from various minority groups that they can't be sent back to for various reasons. and we know that in many, many cases, these are lies and that these are lies taught to them by charity groups or so—called charity groups or so—called charity groups or so—called charity groups to help people stay here. do we really think there are that many people from all these different backgrounds who are coming over here in search of a better life that they couldn't have in france? >> come on now, james, you're speaking about the smash the gang strategy that the labour government has promised to

implement. they say it's working. we had a statement from sir keir starmer last month when they made one arrest of a suspected small boat supplier. but you mentioned removing that deterrent effect, the rwanda policy. what could they bring in addition to what's already been announced, to have an effect on stopping small boats, assuming they won't reintroduce the off shore deportation scheme? >> well, if they didn't reintroduce the rwanda off shore deportation scheme, there are plenty of other countries that could perhaps go for it. there are even other european union countries who are starting to consider those sorts of options about sending people to far flung countries in order to be processed rather than coming here. that would be one option just to find other countries. if rwanda is off the table for political reasons. i think that bringing bringing back that idea that if you enter this country illegally, no matter what, you will never be allowed to stay here. that is a massive deterrent. and i think that we need to get tougher with other

countries who are not willing to receive these people back again. the united kingdom, despite frankly not being a very rich country anymore, is still spending and sending tens of billions of pounds of taxpayers money every year to developing countries around the world. and those are the same countries who are now refusing to have these people come back to their countries. and i think it would be a very sensible and moral policy to say to countries who are receiving british taxpayers hard earned money in the form of overseas aid. if you don't start taking these people back, then we're going to cut off the aid that we send to you. and it's completely madness that we don't do that already, frankly. >> former government senior special adviser james price, thank you so much for joining special adviser james price, thank you so much forjoining us and have a lovely new year. >> now up next tours, trials and triumphs how harry and meghan fared in 2024. >> but if you're in search of some winter sun, here's the forecast for some of the top european holiday destinations.

>> ready to soak up that holiday sunshine? >> won't we need some cover? >> won't we need some cover? >> no worries. >> no worries. >> all sorted allclear travel insurance sponsors gb news travel. destinations. forecast. >> hello there. conditions slowly improving across the far east of the mediterranean, but the risk of showers across southern parts of spain over the next 24 hours. low pressure starting to pull away, but still the risk of some heavy showers for cyprus but generally dry across greece, across into italy. sunny spells here. temperatures around average for the time temperatures around avera