Extreme plans backed by home secretary Suella Braverman to stop asylum seekers crossing the Channel have been criticised as “unworkable” and “completely out of step with British values”.
In a clear bid to pressure Rishi Sunak into taking harsher action on small boat crossings, Ms Braverman has written the foreword to a think tank report which calls for all asylum seekers who enter the UK “illegally” to be detained indefinitely and banned from ever settling here.
The home secretary pledged that she and the prime minister will do “whatever it takes” to end the crossings, and is understood to also endorse recommendations to cap the numbers granted asylum at 20,000 a year and to pull the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights “if necessary”.