Minister backs Lee Anderson's 'righteous indignation' over illegal migrants
The Conservatives have blasted Sir Keir Starmer’s new proposal to open Britain’s door to EU asylum seekers.
Sir Keir’s first concrete migration proposals emerged last night, with Labour pledging to take in more migrants from the EU in return for a new borders deal with Brussels.
Despite the EU already rejecting a returns agreement with the Government, Labour believes they can do a deal on the grounds of offering to be more generous in accepting Britain’s fair share of migrants.
Labour would scrap the current Rwanda deportation deal, and use the cash to funnel around ￡160million into the National Crime Agency.
Both Sir Keir and shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper arrived in the Hague yesterday evening for talks with Europe.
READ MORE: Starmer launches bid to secure new migrant returns deal with EU under Labour
Sir Keir arrived in the Hague last night (Image: PA)
However the Tories have launched a blistering attack on the Labour leader’s new proposals, warning it will result in as many as 100,000 new migrants entering Britain every single year.
Immigration minister Robert Jenrick said their ‘plan’ is a “recipe for even more illegal migration”.
“If they’re not campaigning to allow illegal migrants to stay, Labour are lobbying for even greater incentives for migrants to come here illegally from the safety of France.”
“The truth is Labour are totally unprepared to make the tough, but necessary decisions to stop the boats.
“They treat the valid concerns of the British public with utter disdain”.
The figures being pushed by the Tories this morning come from a Council of the EU document, published in June this year, around the proposal for regulating asylum and migration management.
Clause 31 of the document says that distribution of migrants within an EU sharing arrangement, like Sir Keir wants to enter, would be based “on the size of the population and the economy of the Member State”.
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Tories say Sir Keir's deal would lead to 100,000 more migrants arriving every year (Image: Getty)
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“In the operationalisation of the Solidarity Pool, contributing Member States should implement their pledges in proportion to their overall pledge, meaning that each time solidarity is drawn from the pool these Member States contribute according to their fair share.”
Tory calculations suggest the UK would comprise 13 percent of the EU’s total 520 million population, and therefore have to take in 100,000 of the EU’s 1 million migrant arrivals last year.
That could go higher if Europe's migration crisis gets worse over the coming years, however.
Last night, Sir Keir’s spokesman admitted the UK will have to consider taking migrants from the continent if they want to secure a deal with the EU.
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He told reporters: “If you want to have a conversation about returns agreements, then that will need to be a conversation that happens.
“The details of those conversations will follow. But it is clear that having returns agreements is an essential part of being able to deal with the backlog and end the use of hotels.
“The exact way it would operate would have to be for negotiation.”
He admitted Labour is confident it can secure a deal and admitted it could be part of a wider plan to forge closer ties with Brussels.
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