Border security minister Dame Angela Eagle has warned people who are protesting outside asylum hotels that ‘anger doesn’t get you anywhere’ as she pledged to do the ‘detailed work’
The border security minister has warned people who are protesting outside hotels housing asylum seekers that “anger doesn’t get you anywhere”.
Dame Angela Eagle said she hears the worries of Brits across the country but warned it wasn’t easy to deport people without other countries being on board. She promised the Government was “doing the detailed work” to crack down on small boat crossings, after the Home Office unveiled its plan to pump an extra £100million into tackling people smuggling.
It comes as Keir Starmer is offered a warning by a top pollster over Jeremy Corbyn’s new party.
Dame Angela told people protests must not be used to “have a pop at the police” amid demonstrations having taken place outside hotels over recent weeks across the country, including in London, Newcastle and Epping in Essex. Police have been forced to make a series of arrest after protests turned violent.
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Yesterday reports emerged that dozens of young men wearing balaclavas and armed with smoke bombs tried to storm a hotel housing asylum seekers in Canary Wharf. Police said a group of demonstrators have been ordered not to return to the area for 28 days after trying to harass people staying in the hotel, as well as the hotel’s staff.
Asked what her message was to protesters, Dame Angela told Sky News: “Anger doesn’t get you anywhere.
“What we have to do is recognise the values we have in this country, the rule of law we have in this country, the work we’re doing with the police to protect people. We will close asylum hotels by the end of the Parliament. We’ll do it faster if we can.”
Dame Angela also said: “We are doing all we can to deal with the challenges that the police are facing on the streets to make sure that women and girls are safe, and in fact, that everybody is safe on our streets.”
She had earlier told Times Radio: “Those who are worried and demonstrating have an absolute right to do that, so long as they do it peacefully.
“People don’t have a right to then have a pop at the police, which has been happening in some isolated cases outside hotels.”
Conservative shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick has warned that “the public’s patience with the asylum hotels and with the whole issue of illegal migration has snapped”, after small boat crossings topped 25,000 for the year so far, a record for this point in the year.
The Home Office today announced a £100million boost to border security, which will pay for up to 300 additional National Crime Agency officers, new detection technology and equipment to smash the criminal networks facilitating small boat crossings.
The cash will also fund a pilot of the ‘one-in, one-out’ returns deal with France, which will see migrants who arrive illegally in dinghies sent back across the Channel for the first time
The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill has cleared the Commons but must undergo further scrutiny in the Lords before it becomes law.
The National Crime Agency has 91 ongoing investigations into people smuggling networks affecting the UK, the agency’s director general of operations Rob Jones said.
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