During a visit to Albania, the prime minister says he is "determined" to retake control of the UK’s borders, blaming the previous government for losing control. Sir Keir Starmer called small boat crossings "totally unacceptable" and praised joint efforts with Albania to tackle people-smuggling gangs, vowing to build on that cooperation to "clear up the mess." Report by Covellm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00It is totally unacceptable that anybody is getting on a small boat and crossing the channel
00:07to the United Kingdom. The last government lost control of the borders and determined
00:12that we'll retake control of the borders. That means that we've got to have a concerted
00:16effort to smash the gangs that are running this vile trade. We've carried out in the
00:21last few months many high-profile arrests across different parts of the world, working
00:26with partners like Iraq that haven't been possible in the past, seized a lot of assets,
00:31had returns agreements, maximum number of returns. But what we've done in our joint work
00:36with Albania is shown that by working with other countries, this morning you saw law enforcement
00:41from Albania alongside law enforcement in the UK, we've driven down those numbers. I want
00:46to see more of that because I'm absolutely determined that we're going to clear up the mess that we've
00:51been left. I want to see much stronger action taken across the piece here, whether it's
00:56arrests, seizing of assets, stopping people getting in boats, making sure that where people
01:01do get through we return them. We've had maximum number of 24,000 people have been returned under
01:06this government. That's the highest record for nearly a decade. We've got to keep bearing
01:11down on this issue.