Blair Supports Kemi: Small-Boat Migrants Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Claim Asylum

Sir Tony Blair has disagreed with Sir Keir Starmer by saying that people arriving in the UK by boat should not be allowed to claim asylum, agreeing with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s stance.

In his new book, the former Prime Minister argues that immigration will keep rising unless potential arrivals know there’s no shortcut to British citizenship via refugee law.

At this month’s Tory conference, Mrs Badenoch rolled out a bunch of new immigration policies, including a ban on asylum claims for people entering the country illegally. Her plans also include a US-style “Removals Force” to track down and deport 750,000 migrants.

Sir Keir still backs the current asylum laws, but Nigel Farage’s polling surge has pressured him into pledging tougher restrictions.

Sir Tony’s views are featured in Taxpayers’ Alliance founder Matthew Elliott’s new book, Prosperity Through Growth. He takes aim at Joe Biden’s relaxed approach to migration amnesties, saying it doesn’t measure up to Donald Trump’s strict, zero-tolerance stance.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp commented: ‘Even Tony Blair can see Labour’s open borders asylum policy is a red carpet across the Channel. When you tell the world that anyone who arrives illegally can still claim asylum, the crossings will never stop.

‘This is why the Conservative border plan will end asylum claims for all illegal entrants. It’s common sense: Stop the pull factor that lets migrants make bogus claims and stay in the UK for the rest of their lives.

‘Unlike Labour, our plan is tough and deliverable: Leave the European Convention on Human Rights, remove all illegal immigrants within a week of arrival and end the merry-go-round of appeals. That is how we stop this madness. But Starmer doesn’t have the backbone to do this.’

Critics are expected to jump on Blair’s comments, noting that his government oversaw soaring immigration levels – later revealed to be part of a deliberate plan by No 10 to, in the words of Blair adviser Andrew Neather, “rub the Right’s nose in diversity” as a way to permanently reshape British society.

Mr Elliott also spoke with Boris Johnson for his book, and the former Prime Minister shared that he had “kept secret” his discovery of a rare newt after newt-protection laws nearly blocked his plans for a swimming pool at his Oxfordshire home.

Mr Johnson said to Mr Elliott :’I built a swimming pool and I had this thing with newts. I had to build little newt motels for them.

‘The environmental impact guys assess whether the water or the property might be hospitable to newts. If it is, then you have to build these structures.

‘But they never found any newts. I did. I found one in my basement, which I kept secret. It was an enormous black great crested newt.’

Mr Johnson remarked to The Mail on Sunday:  ‘I wasn’t doing anything to the part of the property where I found the newt, so no newt protection was needed.’