Keir Starmer demanded foreign criminals stay in UK... and then they carried out MORE crimes

The former Crown Prosecution Service boss demanded that “all future charter flights must be suspended” and suggested the convicts were given taxpayer-funded mobile phones in a bid to help them to stay in Britain.

Following the intervention seven of the criminals went on to commit more violent or drug-related crimes.

It comes after Starmer appeared to take a "tough" approach on crime in a major speech on anti-social behaviour yesterday.

The Labour MP has also refused to support the Government's policy bid to deport illegal arrivals to the UK to Rwanda.

A spokesman for the Party claimed the letter signed by Starmer made no difference when “the Tories have left the department responsible for our national security unable to deal with violent and serious criminals”.

“It’s the Government’s failure to sort out their own legal systems or put someone on another flight that is responsible for these crimes, not some letter," they told The Sun.

Among those who reoffended following the campaign in 2022 was heroin dealer Ikiva Heaven, who had already served four years in prison and was released in 2018.

Heaven was jailed again in May 2021 after dealing cocaine and heroin in Southsea, Hants.

Starmer also campaigned for criminal Barrington Laing not to be removed from Britain despite years of crime beginning when he was in an Asbo gang aged 14.

The Leader of the Opposition was director of public prosecutions when Laing was banned from Croydon city centre for terrifying families.

Laing was jailed for four years and four months just seven months before Starmer helped him avoid deportation.

The convict led police on a high-speed car chase through Margate when he was selling drugs into Kent.

During the incident, he hit a car and also tried to hide £780 under a hospital bed.

In November last year, he was jailed again for six months after carrying a knife.

Others who were allowed to stay in the UK include a convicted robber who went on to commit a violent assault and a county-lines dealer who was later convicted of stalking and drug dealing.

In 2020, following the campaign, a last-minute legal challenge saw an order banning 23 of the detainees from being removed from Britain as planned.

Two days after the letter was published, a flight took off with just 17 of the offenders, which was less than half.

It comes after another letter signed by senior Labour MPs and celebrities helped keep prolific offender Ernesto Elliott in Britain before he murdered a man in a knife fight in June 2021.