‘Another pledge broken!’ Tories and Reform slam Starmer’s huge U-turn on migrant hotels
The top of the Tory party and Reform UK have stuck the boot in this morning after plans to keep migrants in hotels came to light.
Yvette Cooper grilled on Labour immigration policy
Keir Starmer is being torn apart after it emerged he is set to break yet another manifesto pledge, this time around housing migrants in hotels.
Labour’s manifesto pledged to “end asylum hotels, saving the taxpayer billions of pounds”.
While they didn’t set a timeframe, Home Office officials had been expecting all hotel use to end within a year of Sir Keir coming to power.
However this morning it emerged that migrants will now continue to be housed in hotels for up to three years due to the size of the backlog and swathes of migrants continuing to float over the Channel.
The overall backlog stands at around 225,000, a number that has increased by 11,000 since Labour came to power.
The news that hotels will now continue to be used was greeted with fury by opposition politicians.
Tory leadership frontrunner Robert Jenrick said: “Starmer pledged to ‘end asylum hotels’.”
“But he scrapped rather than strengthened the Rwanda plan. And in the 88 days he’s been PM, 11,000 illegal migrants have come.
“It’s no surprise then that, under Starmer, we’ll be spending billions on these hotels for years to come.”
Rival James Cleverly, former Home Secretary, warned Labour is planning to re-open asylum hotels “because they scrapped Rwanda, have no plan, and over 11,000 illegal migrants have crossed the channel since Labour took office.”
Meanwhile Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice shared a graphic comparing Sir Keir’s £1.4 billion in cuts to Winter Fuel Payment, while spending £8.5 billion on unemployed immigrants.
He added: “Only Reform UK is on the side of pensioners and the lowest paid.”
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Only @reformparty_uk is on side of pensioners and lowest paid pic.twitter.com/X4BXQok1rw
— Richard Tice MP ???????????? (@TiceRichard) October 1, 2024
Tory MP Ben Obese-Jecty fumed: “[Labour’s] not smashing the gangs. They’re barely clearing the backlog.”
“Over 10,000 more people have arrived in the last three months.”
During the election campaign, the Prime Minister said: “If we were to carry on with this government, we would have the best part of 100,000 asylum seekers in this country, none of whom are being processed.”
“That means none of them can be returned, because until you’re processed, you can’t be returned, even if you’ve got no right to be here, being housed in hotels at the taxpayer’s expense. I don’t think that’s right and yes we want to turn that around.”
Labour is now trying to pass the buck onto the Conservatives, as with the claimed ‘£22 billion blackhole’, and claiming things are worse than they believed before entering Government.
A Labour source told the Times: “We have inherited a completely failed immigration system from the Tories. Including them spending over £700 million on Rwanda, and gimmicks that didn’t work.”
