'If you're saying that isn't what we should be doing, then I don't understand why you're in politics'
MP Kieran Mullen came out in defence of the government’s migration policies today, which have recently suffered a series of blows through the courts and in the House of Lords.
With Suella Braverman’s Rwanda scheme being ruled unlawful by the Court of Appeal and the government’s Illegal Migration Bill facing a series of defeats in the House of Lords, the MP for Crewe and Nantwich attempted to justify their policies and argued they were the, ‘morally right thing to do’.
However, sat next to him on Politics Live was Baroness Anderson, Labour member in the House of Lords, who took and dismantled his arguments, in which he blamed Labour peers for undermining the government’s policies and said the schemes would help vulnerable women.
When asked whether the House of Lords was attempting to block the Illegal Migration Bill, Mullen responded: “Well clearly, largely led by Labour peers, they’re just not signed up to what the British public want us to do which is to get control of illegal migration.”
He went on: “Not only is it something the British people want, it’s the morally right thing to do. We should not be saying to a grandma in a wheelchair in a refugee camp in Syria that she can’t get asylum because actually our systems is overwhelmed by young men crossing in small boats.
“That’s what it boils down to, what choice do you want to make. They say let’s use safe and legal routes, ultimately if you make it easier for people to get here we’d have even more claims and the system would be even more overwhelmed. We have to set a limit and that is the fair and compassionate thing to do.”
After hearing out his argument Baroness Anderson corrected the popular narrative chimed by Tory MPs to justify their actions on migration.
“I love the idea that there is a grandma sitting and trying to get through on the legal route, because there aren’t any,” said Anderson. “There aren’t any for the women we left in Afghanistan, nor for the people who worked with our forces. We left thousands of people who had a relationship with us abandoned.
“Also only 1% of the people who arrived here by boats last year have been dealt with in terms of their cases.
“The backlog is worse than it has been at any point in the last 13 years, not comparing to anything that has happened before. This is an incompetent and ineffective government that can’t even deal with paper work.”
Campaigners have been calling for the government to put more money into tackling the asylum backlog. The number of people waiting for an asylum decision has increased by 408% since December 2017, according to analysis from the Institute for Government, which the Home Affairs Committee put down to poor resourcing by successive governments, including before the increases in Channel crossings.
Baroness Anderson went on to tackle his comments on the House of Lords verdict, where Lords voted on four significant amendments to the Illegal Migration Bill.
Commenting on Mullen’s argument that it was ‘largely led by Labour peers’, Baroness Anderson said: “There was one Labour amendment we voted on yesterday and it was the Alf Dubs amendment to protect children and if you’re saying that isn’t what we should be doing, then I don’t understand why you’re in politics.”
The Alf Dubs amendment was designed to ensure that the Government would continue to allow unaccompanied and separated refugee children in Europe the opportunity to be reunited with family members in the UK.
The other amendments came from cross-benchers and Tory MPs were among those to condemn the bill in Parliament.
Watch full video below.
(Photo credit: Politcs Live / BBC iPlayer)
Hannah Davenport is trade union reporter at Left Foot Forward
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