Labour is considering moving asylum seekers out of hotels and into military barracks – and could announce the plan ‘imminently’.
It follows months of divisive protests outside hotels, as well as a wave of English flags being spray painted across the country.
New Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will announce the new system ‘within weeks’ as the government grapples with people arriving across the English Channel in small boats, the Telegraph reported this morning.
Defence Secretary John Healey confirmed that the plan was being considered, telling Sky News his department was working on the idea with the Home Office.
‘With the Home Office, I have been putting military planners into their border command and into their planning for the future, and we are looking at the potential use of military and non-military sites for temporary accommodation for the people who come across on these small boats that may not have a right to be here or need to be processed rapidly before we can decide whether or not they should say or whether or not we deport them, like we have done in record numbers over the last year,’ he said.
The government is also said to be close to agreeing a ‘one in, one out’ deal with Germany, like the one recently agreed with France.
In the deal agreed with Emmanuel Macron, asylum seekers can be sent back to France in return for the UK accepting an equal number of asylum seekers from France, who have applied legally, if they have not attempted to arrive by small boat in the past.
Announcing the French deal, the government said the agreement means that anyone entering the UK on a small boat ‘can be detained immediately on arrival’.
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The scheme is so far only a pilot but will expand if successful.
It comes after the Prime Minister carried out a major reshuffle including wide-ranging changes at the Home Office as he seeks to tighten his grip on immigration and draw a line under Angela Rayner’s resignation, with the biggest other move being former home secretary Yvette Cooper becoming Foreign Secretary.
Shabana Mahood previous had the prisons brief, and unveiled plans such as immediately deporting foreign criminals with no right to remain in the UK, rather than requiring them to serve their sentence here, as well as extending punishments to include things liike pub, concert and football match bans.
Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones earlier denied that the Government was in crisis and insisted Sir Keir now has the ‘strongest team’ in place around the Cabinet table following Ms Rayner’s departure.
He rejected the idea Ms Cooper had been moved out of the Home Office because she was failing to control immigration, adding she would be ‘brilliant’ in her new role as the UK’s top diplomat.
Announcing the deportation scheme with France, Keir Starmer said it was ‘the product of months of grown-up diplomacy’ to ‘strike at the heart of these vile gangs’ business model’.
Meanwhile, Reform has been taking inspiration from Donald Trump’s Alligator Alcatraz.
Speaking on Sky News, Zia Yusuf said: ‘President Trump stood up 3,000 detention beds in eight days. That was this year in the state of Florida – using steel modular structures.’
When presenter Trevor Phillips asked: ‘Shipping containers?”, Mr Yusuf replied: “They’re not shipping containers, they’re purpose-built modular steel structures.”
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