- UK and Belgium agreed to share intelligence quickly to identify, disrupt and dismantle people-smuggling networks running small boats to England.
- New pact lets police exchange information autonomously without prior judicial approval, billed as first post-Brexit law enforcement deal with an EU member.
- Cooperation has already led to over 50 arrests and 40 vehicle seizures; Belgian interceptions rose as smugglers shifted operations from France.
The UK and Belgian governments struck a deal Wednesday to target people-smugglers who launch small boats carrying migrants from Belgium destined for England.
The agreement comes as migrant smugglers increasingly operate out of Belgium, in a shift attributed to efforts by British and French authorities to stop them crossing the Channel from northern France.
UK and Belgian police will be able to exchange intelligence “autonomously and more quickly” under the new pact, “helping identify, disrupt and dismantle” the people smugglers, Britain’s interior ministry said.
Previously, certain information required judicial approval before it could be shared, “reducing investigators’ ability” to act quickly, it added.
The ministry billed the deal as the “first law enforcement agreement of its kind” between Britain and a European Union member state since the UK left the bloc in early 2020.
It was signed Wednesday by British interior minister Shabana Mahmood and Belgian counterpart Bernard Quintin in London.
“This agreement will help UK and Belgian police tighten the net around the criminal gangs behind small boat crossings,” Mahmood said in a statement.
Belgian government figures showed in May that the country had intercepted more than 400 people attempting to cross the Channel since the beginning of the year — up from none in the whole of 2025.
Officials said it was a result of France cracking down on crossings to England’s southeast coast from near Calais.
Britain’s interior ministry said that cooperation with Belgian authorities had resulted in more than 50 arrests linked to migrant smuggling and over 40 vehicle seizures this year.
London has been grappling with how to curb the perilous crossings, which have seen tens of thousands of asylum seekers — many fleeing war and famine — arriving annually in recent years.
The journeys have been seized on by Nigel Farage’s hard-right Reform UK party.
The UK government has said that the number of irregular migrant arrivals over the summer months was the lowest since 2020, in part because of its enforcement deal with France.
