Channel toll could hit 50,000 this year
ANOTHER 10,000 migrants could cross the Channel in the next two months, bringing the total who arrive this year to 50,000, the immigration minister warned yesterday.
Robert Jenrick said the Government would look at ‘more radical options’ to tackle the crisis, but admitted the challenge is ‘very significant’.
And he put up a partial defence of Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s description of the crossings as an ‘invasion’ on the South Coast.
‘Fifty thousand people, and the number could well be significantly higher over the course of this year, is a major challenge for this country,’ he told Sky News.
‘It is leading to the infrastructure that we have in terms of reception centres, like Manston, in terms of hotel accommodation, and asylum and social housing, essentially being overwhelmed.
‘Invasion is a way of describing the sheer scale of the challenge. That’s what Suella Braverman was trying to express.
‘She was also speaking, I think, and this is an important point, for those people who live on the South Coast, who day in, day out are seeing migrant boats landing on their beaches.’
But Mr Jenrick told the BBC: ‘It is not a phrase that I have used, but I do understand the need to be straightforward with the general public about the challenge that we as ministers face.’
Mrs Braverman faced criticism from some
‘Essentially being overwhelmed’
quarters for her language. Tory MP Sir Roger Gale, whose North Thanet constituency contains the Manston migrant processing centre, accused her of being ‘only really interested in playing the Right wing’.
But Tory former Home Office minister Rachel Maclean said Mrs Braverman was ‘right to be honest with the British people that the asylum and immigration system is in crisis’.
‘As a compassionate country we need to be frank about the scale of the challenge,’ she said. Tory MP Brendan Clarke-Smith supported Mrs Braverman, adding: ‘She is right. We must stop people abusing our system, rather than making excuses for them.’
Announcing a crackdown on young Albanian male migrants, Mr Jenrick said the Government would work on a ‘fast-track’ system to speed up removal of migrants with no right to stay in Britain.
He described many of those arriving from Albania as ‘young males who are fit, healthy, prosperous enough to pay the criminal gangs to get here’. ‘You should claim asylum in the first safe country, and a very large proportion of Albanians coming to the UK are coming as economic migrants – some intent on criminality,’ he said.
Some 39,913 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel this year, provisional official figures show. The Ministry of Defence recorded 46 people arriving in one boat on Monday.