Today, when he was under pressure to do more to address the Channel migrant issue, Rishi Sunak supported Suella Braverman once again.
In today’s tense Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr. Sunak faced Labour demands to fire the Home Secretary.
He was also compelled to acknowledge that there was a significant backlog of individuals in Kent detention centers and that “not enough” cases were being handled.
Tens of thousands of asylum seekers are presently being housed in hotels at a cost to taxpayers of about £7 million per day, despite the Home Office’s failure to process even 4% of the applications from those who crossed the Channel in 2016.
Party leader Sir Keir Starmer questioned how a broken asylum system could be the responsibility of anybody other than the Tories as Labour attacked the Government over the crisis on the south coast.
Meg Hillier, a prominent opposition backbencher, questioned the prime minister, saying, “His Home Secretary has defied the law, leaked information, and is in charge of the turmoil at the Home Office.”
What will she need to do in order to be fired?
Mr. Sunak said, “The Home Secretary committed an error of judgment, but she recognized her error and accepted responsibility for her conduct,” with Mrs. Braverman seated next to him.
‘She is now getting on with the job – clamping down on crime, guarding our borders, something I know the party opposite has no interest in supporting,’ he said. Ms. Braverman, he added, had laid out ‘transparently, in detail an entire sequence of events.’
The processing of “not enough” refugee petitions has been recognized by the prime minister.
How many asylum applications have been handled out of all the individuals who came in tiny boats last year, Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of Labour, questioned him in the Commons.
The answer, very simply put, is “not enough,” Rishi Sunak said. That is what we will correct. However, the honorable gentleman asks, “What do we do?” We’ve doubled the amount of processing authorities.
We will add 500 more by March of next year. But if he were sincere about solving this issue, he would admit that we do need to address the problem of individuals making fictitious, fictitious claims, and fictitious claims that are repeated at the last minute in an effort to sabotage the process. That will be our approach to the system.
Nobody on this side of the House supports open borders, according to Sir Keir. On their side of the House, they no longer have power over the boundaries.
Five years, four prime ministers. He stands there and attempts to shift the responsibility; it’s the same old, same old.
“How can it be anyone’s responsibility except theirs if the asylum system is failing and his bunch have been in power for 12 years?”
“People correctly want to see us having a handle on migration and our borders,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak remarked. Examining his voting history reveals that he opposed stopping free movement of people, said he would cancel the Rwanda cooperation, and opposed the Nationality and Borders Bill.
Border control is a significant, complicated subject, but in addition to lacking a strategy, the opposition party has resisted every step we have made to address it. You can’t challenge a plan if you don’t have one.