Labour shadow minister further demonstrates that Labours immigration plan has no substance

Liz Kendall, Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, appeared on “Sunday morning with Trevor Phillips” this morning (Sunday 26th May). Phillips questioned her directly on Labours’ plan to address the backlog of asylum claimants already in the UK. The legitimate line of questioning comes in light of her party’s continued commitment to reverse the Rwanda plan, regardless of whether it works or not.

When faced with a straightforward question regarding what Labour would do with asylum seekers in the UK currently with no status, she completely failed to address the question, or offer anything substantive in response. Instead, all we got was more recycling of vague party lines about smashing the gangs.

Phillips: “What would happen if you came into office? You won't send them to Rwanda and you won't send them home... What are you going to do about the people who are already here?"

Kendall: “Our first priority is to set up a new border command to crack down on those criminal gangs. “

Phillips: “But what are you going to with the tens of thousands of people [who are already here]”

Kendall: “We will drive down that backlog. We are spending £8million a day funding people in hotels. “

Phillips: “But what are you going to with those people who are in the country, they have no status… you say you won’t send them to Rwanda, you can’t send them back, what are you going to do with them?”

Kendall: “We have got to drive down that asylum backlog. We have set forward our fully costed, fully funded plan to bring that backlog down. But the real thing here is we have got to stop those boats. That’s why we are launching our new border security plan to crack down on the criminal gangs”

We are already seeing the same tired old lines being trotted out repeatedly by Labour MPs, now they are finally starting to be faced with some tough questions. They speak of their policies being “fully costed and fully funded”, but we are yet to see any evidence of this.

I strongly suspect that, once we have an opportunity to scrutinize a Labour party manifesto, some gaping holes in this argument will start appearing pretty quickly.

Today’s embarrassing exchange between Kendall and Phillips provided just the latest demonstration that Labour do not have a plan when it comes to immigration, and we can expect an amnesty granted to thousands of undocumented migrants once Labour get into power, that could see potentially dangerous criminals being let loose in British society. You have been warned.