By GB News (World News) | Created at 2025-02-01 21:51:03 | Updated at 2025-02-02 00:37:41
2 hours ago
Labour's new Border Security Bill has been branded an "insult to the British people" after it was revealed the party would be repealing a number of Tory-era rules on illegal migrants.
As part of the Bill, announced earlier this week, parts of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 are set to be repealed, including rules that almost all illegal arrivals would never be able to gain British citizenship, and that "asylum seekers" should be treated as adults if they failed to take age tests.
Labour's Bill has been hailed as a counter-terror-style crackdown by the party - but Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp has warned that it will only lead to "dangerous young men being placed with teenage girls".
Philp told The Telegraph: "[It] makes the UK the soft touch of Europe. Starmer is a weak Prime Minister.
Labour's Bill has been hailed as a counter-terror-style crackdown by the party
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'I will fight tooth and nail against this craven capitulation to illegal immigrants and people-smugglers,' Chris Philp said
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Labour has pledged to retain some powers from the 2023 Act and has said it reserves the right to legislate to introduce stronger sanctions if necessary.
But the repealing has sparked fury from migration hardliners Suella Braverman and Rupert Lowe - the former of which said Labour is "decriminalising illegal migration" to the UK.
Under the Tories, almost anyone who entered the country illegally was ruled ineligible for "settled status" and eventual citizenship.
And now, Braverman has said the Bill "removes all the security and provisions we had put into place to keep the UK safe and is a disgrace".
"To put it bluntly, it is an insult to the British people. It shamefully opens up our borders and disgracefully allows illegal immigrants to become citizens... If you enter the UK illegally, you should be detained, deported, and banned from ever returning."
While Lowe said: "Our asylum system is already as soft as a boiled maggot. Zero tolerance is required.
'Our asylum system is already as soft as a boiled maggot. Zero tolerance is required,' Rupert Lowe said
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"It is abundantly clear that thousands of males are fooling the incompetent Home Office through lies over their age, sexuality, religion and more. It is a scam.
"The word of the migrant is often taken as the truth, with 'the benefit of the doubt' regularly implemented as official policy."
A Home Office spokesman said: "The new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill introduces workable measures to strengthen cross-system, operational efforts to tighten border security, enhance upstream work with international partners and help ensure a properly functioning, secure immigration system.
"The Illegal Migration Act has largely not been commenced (including this measure on age assessments); nor will it be under this Government's policy which focuses on delivering long-term, credible policies that restore order to the asylum system.
"We have robust processes in place to verify and assess an individual's age where there is doubt, including the National Age Assessment Board, and have maintained the provisions on scientific assessments from the Nationality & Borders Act 2022."
