Jo White warned that failure to deal with the asylum system would cost Labour at the next general election after Lord David Blunkett called on the PM to be radical and said the issue is ‘toxic’
A Labour MP has said the asylum shambles is the “number one priority” for the Government – and warned failure will see them kicked out of power.
Pressure is mounting on ministers to speed up asylum hotel closures, with tensions seeing demonstrations and counter-protests on Britain’s streets over the weekend. Former Labour Home Secretary Lord David Blunkett warned the issue is becoming “toxic” and and said it is beginning to get out of the Government’s grip.
Backbencher Jo White said: “I think it’s the number one priority for this Government. I firmly believe that if we don’t sort it, then Labour are under threat at the next general election.
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“I want this Government to look at every solution possible.” She said: “We need to make it far more difficult for asylum seekers to want to come to this country.”
A YouGov poll for The Times found that 71% per cent of voters believe the Prime Minister is handling the asylum hotel issue badly, including 56% of Labour supporters.
Nigel Farage is set to lay out his plans to shake up the asylum system on Tuesday – including reaching a return agreement with the Taliban. The Reform leader also proposes sending small boat arrivals to Ascension Island – the site of a UK/US air base – in the Atlantic.
Labour’s border security minister, Dame Angela Eagle, hit back: “Nigel Farage is simply plucking numbers out of the air, another pie in the sky policy from a party that will say anything for a headline.”
She pointed to ramped up returns, the falling cost of the asylum system and steps targeting trafficking gangs, telling The Mirror there would be “no gimmicks, no games”.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced at the weekend that asylum appeals would be sped up, with a panel of independent adjudicators taking decisions rather than judges. And a pilot one-in-one-out return deal with France has started, with small boat arrivals detained on arrival earlier this month.
Lord Blunkett said: “I think that the individual measures the Government has taken are extremely helpful in their own right but don’t add up either to a comprehensive answer or an understandable narrative.
“At the moment the issue is so toxic and beginning to get out of the Government’s grip to the point it is very hard to bring it back. A further package of actions is absolutely vital to start controlling both the public narrative and the delivery.”
He has suggested suspending elements of the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Refugee Convention, calling on Mr Starmer to be “radical”. A survey by YouGov of over 2,100 people found 37% of voters viewed immigration and asylum as the most important issue facing the country.
This was ahead of 25% who said the economy and 7% who said the health service. Protests have been held outside asylum hotels across the UK in recent days.
Figures last week showed over 32,000 asylum seekers were living in hotels at the end of June – down from over 56,000 under the Tories in 2023. The Government has vowed to end their use by the end of this Parliament in 2029.
But the issue has come into sharp focus after the High Court ruling ordered the Bell Hotel in Epping to be closed to migrants because planning procedures were not properly followed. The hotel has been the site of clashes after a man living there was accused of assaulting a 14-year-old girl.
The Government says it plans to challenge the court decision, saying that hotel closures must be done in a managed way.
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