The newly elected leftist Labour government in the United Kingdom is reportedly planning to offer more than 100,000 migrants, mostly illegals, an opportunity to apply for asylum and remain in the country. This comes after the planned Tory scheme to send illegal boat migrants to Rwanda to have their asylum claims processed offshore was cancelled by Sir Keir Starmer’s administration.
According to The Telegraph, the new government is set to allow some 90,000 boat migrants who were set for removal to apply for asylum in Britain. These boat migrants are among around 102,000 reportedly set to be given the opportunity to stay in the UK, reducing strain on the asylum system by transferring that burden onto the general population. The policy would also clear some 36,000 migrants being housed in hotels across the country at a cost of around £2.9 million per day to taxpayers.
When asked if the new policy would mean that any migrant who arrives illegally by boat across the English Channel would have the immediate right to apply for asylum, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “We need to ensure that people who arrive here are processed so that people are not sitting in the system, housed in expensive taxpayer-funded hotels as they have been under previous administrations.
Former Home Secretary James Cleverly described the plan as an effective amnesty, saying: “The very first thing Labour did in government was scrap the Rwanda deterrent. The second is to grant an effective amnesty to 100,000 illegal migrants, who were banned from claiming asylum under our plans. It has taken the Labour Party less than five days to make the UK more attractive to asylum seekers than ever before.
This comes as the first illegals have already been brought ashore in Britain under Starmer’s government, taking the total number of migrants to an estimated 13,574 for the first six months of the year – the highest on record. While the previous ‘Conservative’ government allowed in record waves of illegals, prospective boat migrants reportedly celebrated the victory of the left-wing Labour government.
Rather than sending illegals to an offshore site like Rwanda as the Tories have called for or using the Royal Navy to simply return boat migrants back to France, Starmer has said that he will increase spending to crack down on the people smuggling networks that facilitate the illegal crossings. His government is also reportedly considering plans to seek a migrant returns policy with the European Union in exchange for taking an annual quota of migrants from the bloc.
Meanwhile, Starmer has received warnings from former Prime Minister Tony Blair – who first opened up Britain to mass migration – that the new Labour government needs to limit migration or risk empowering anti-mass migration populists like Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party.