Keir Starmer has been urged to “completely overhaul” the UK’s “broken asylum system” after 12 migrants lost their lives trying to cross the Channel.
The small boat migrants were killed on Tuesday after their boat capsized and included a pregnant woman and six children.
Following the incident, France’s interior minister claimed Britain’s ‘soft-touch’ rules were to blame for the latest Channel disaster.
Gérald Darmanin said in his statement the UK was a place “where you can work without papers and where you have little chance of being expelled”.
Darmanin has reportedly called for a UK-EU migration treaty to curb crossings in the wake of the tragedy.
But Downing Street rejected this, with a spokesman saying: “We have no plans to be part of an EU scheme on asylum, but we will continue to work with European partners to shut down smuggling routes and smash those criminal gangs.”
Discussing the increasingly concerning situation in the Channel, Migrant Support Coordinator Kay Marsh stressed that “people are dying in the Channel because our system is broken”, calling for an “overhaul” of the current asylum process.
Marsh explained: “I do understand the issue is a broken system. People are dying in the channel because our system is broken. We need a complete overhaul of the immigration system.
“We need alternative safe and legal routes to asylum, so that people can be brought here safely and legally without needing to risk their lives in a small boat.”
When pressed by host Bev Turner on what alternative barriers the Labour Government can use to help tackle the migrant crisis, Marsh claimed that a new processing centre could be built in France to prevent people from making the journey across the Channel.
She told GB News: “There are a number of different things that we could look at. Humanitarian visas were used for the Ukrainian situation, people were brought here very quickly when they needed to be, very safely. They didn’t have to navigate small boats or the asylum system at all.
“If we can build a processing centre in Rwanda, we can build a processing centre in northern France, where people can start their claim before needing to get onto a boat.”
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Source Agencies
