Keir Starmer's 'rain dance' migrant plans exposed and will land Brits with '£635 bill'
Home Secretary James Cleverly said Labour has failed to come up with a credible way of tackling the small boats crisis.
Keir Starmer’s plan to tackle illegal migration amounts to a “rain dance” on the cliffs of Dover that will land families with a £635 bill.
Home Secretary James Cleverly said Labour has failed to come up with a credible way of tackling the small boats crisis.
He warned that will have to foot the bill for a growing number of asylum seekers or grant them amnesty.
The warning comes as a shadow minister claimed the Labour leader’s team is worried about a surge of crossing if there is good weather in the days after the election.
Mr Cleverly said: “Right now, all we know is that Keir Starmer would stand on the cliffs of Dover to do a rain dance and hope that stops the boats.
“There would be no deterrent under Labour and that means the business model for people smugglers would still be viable – boats would cross the channel in droves.
“There are thousands waiting in Calais for a Labour government so they can make the crossing. We simply cannot give them that incentive by surrendering our borders to Labour.”
A Home Office impact assessment found that if illegal migration to the UK continues to rise, the average hotel cost per person per night rises from £126 this year to £178 in 2026 while the supported population would increase to 185,000 people.
The total costs would be in excess of £32 million per day, the analysis warned.
Labour has said it would immediately scrap the Rwanda deterrent plan and would not spend foreign aid budget on asylum hotels, leaving a hole in its budget according to the Conservatives.
A shadow minister told a Sunday newspaper that there was concern about the impact the weather could have on small boats crossings in the week after the election, saying: “Keir's team see that weather forecast as the most important since D-Day.”
Labour said it would clear the asylum backlog and set up a new Returns Unit, that would save taxpayers billions.
A spokesman added: “This is a ludicrous lie from an increasingly desperate Tory Party who have completely lost control of the asylum system or border security. This so-called Tory analysis is actually a costing of their own failing policies, not Labour’s plans which will save the taxpayer billions.
“The Tories have already overspent the Home Office Budget by £5 billion because they let the asylum backlog soar and failed to stop the criminal gangs. If they carry on like this for the next five years they will more than treble those costs. That’s on top of the half a billion pounds they’re already sending to Rwanda, even though they’ve only sent two volunteers.”
