A CONSERVATIVE minister has said there was “no excuse” for asylum seekers who die crossing the Channel to arrive in Britain – as he described them as “breaking into our country”.
Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick criticised asylum seekers arriving in Britain from France, arguing they should stay there and not cross the Channel – suggesting people who died in the process had put themselves at risk.
The SNP have accused him of "dogwhistle politics at its worst" over the comments.
Alison Thewliss (below), the SNP’s home affairs spokesperson, raised the case of two people who had died crossing the Channel last week as she urged the Government to introduce more “safe and legal routes” to stop people from making the perilous journey.
She said: “A woman and a man died last week attempting to cross the Channel in a small boat and others in their group were hospitalised for hypothermia.
“Despite the clear risks, over 400 people in nine boats were detected crossing the Channel in the past seven days. They clearly felt there was no other choice.
“The lack of safe and legal routes is putting people at risk. So I ask the immigration minister, will he consider a humanitarian visa as the Red Cross have recommended?”
Jenrick said: “Well firstly, I think all of us across the house abhor the death of individuals in the Channel and we are working very closely with the French authorities to investigate the circumstances of those individuals’ deaths.
“But those individuals seeking to cross the Channel are coming from a place of evident safety.
“They’re departing from France, they are in absolutely no danger. They’re in a country with a fully-functioning asylum system of its own.
“There is no excuse for those people breaking into our country, putting themselves at the hands of people smugglers. We should be united in trying to deter that.
“With respect to the second question that [Thewliss] raised about the safe and legal routes to the UK, she knows that we have issued more than half a million humanitarian visas since 2015 – more than at any time in the history of this country and if she wants to do more, she should go straight back after this debate to the SNP government and ask them to pull their weight and provide more safe spaces for asylum seekers and refugees back in Scotland.”
Speaking afterwards, Thewliss told The National: "To accuse people of 'breaking in' to the UK is dogwhistle politics at its worst.
"The Immigration Minister must be aware that the vast majority of those who make small boat crossings have gone on to have their asylum claims granted.
"He also knows that the only way that people can make a claim for asylum is to put their feet on British soil.
"This UK Tory Government has sunk to despicable depths on their rhetoric surrounding immigration, and Labour are doing very little to challenge it.
“The UK Government's treatment of vulnerable people who are fleeing war, persecution and unimaginable horrors is not just inhumane, but an abdication of our roles and responsibilities internationally.
"After independence, Scotland can choose an immigration system that treats people with dignity and respect and helps them rebuild their lives."
During Home Office questions on Monday afternoon, Tory backbencher Jill Mortimer (below) said “mass immigration” had cast much of Europe into a “dire state”.
The Hartlepool MP said: “The world is facing troubled times and more mass migration. Will [Jenrick] assure me that he will do all he can to raise the bar for those seeking asylum or migration here, and look at other solutions to stop people leaving their homelands so those countries can make better futures for themselves without the loss of so many of their young?
“Much of Europe is in a dire state because of mass immigration, we cannot let the United Kingdom go the same way.”
Jenrick said: “[Mortimer] makes a very strong point. Whilst some of those coming here to claim asylum do have genuine grounds for asylum, many are economic migrants making spurious claims to game the system.
“For some nationalities our grant rates are out of sync with European countries and that’s why we’ve taken extensive work to lower them.”
Elsewhere he assured Tory MPs – who are furious as it was revealed last week that net migration rates had reached a record 745,000 in the year to December 2022 – that the Rwanda plan, scuppered by a Supreme Court ruling earlier this month, would be revised “shortly”.
