Lisa Nandy has defended the efforts of the Labour Government to tackle small boat crossings, despite a record-breaking day for arrivals taking place this week.
Speaking to GB News, the Culture Secretary assured People’s Channel viewers that what the Government is doing “is working”, and they are “taking action to disrupt the criminal gangs that smuggle people”.
On Wednesday, the UK saw the highest number of small boat crossings in a single day, following two undetected illegal arrivals.
Some 781 migrants arrived across the Channel into Britain, breaking the record for single-day arrivals since records began.
Asked what Prime Minister Andy Burnham is going to do to stop the illegal migration crisis, Ms Nandy told GB News assured that the Government is “taking action” to tackle it.
She said: “What we’re already doing is we’ve signed a returns agreement with France, so we’re able to remove people more easily or turn them back.
“We are taking action to disrupt the criminal gangs that smuggle people.”
Interjecting the Culture Secretary, host Bethany Elsie questioned whether Labour’s strategy is “really working”.
She said: “But is it working, though if on Wednesday, we saw the highest number of people come over the Channel on any given single day this year?”
Ms Nandy responded: “I’d say to your viewers, hand on heart, yes, I do believe it is working, because this summer we saw the lowest level of small boat crossings in six years. That is not an accident.
“That’s because we’ve done the hard yards, not just to disrupt the criminal gangs and to sign that returns agreement with France, but also because of some of the work that the Home Secretary is doing, sending a message loud and clear to people in the country that there will be tough rules, they will be enforced.”
Ms Nandy made clear that if asylum seekers “abuse the safe and legal routes” into Britain, they will “face the consequences”.
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She told GB News: “While we welcome people to come here and to contribute, we won’t put up with people coming here illegally. There are safe and legal routes to reach this country, and if you decide to abuse that, then you can expect to face the consequences.
“What I won’t do, though is I won’t do what I’ve seen many politicians of other parties come on your show and do and pretend that there is one simple solution to solve this problem overnight.
“People have been made false promises by their politicians for too long. We are pulling every lever at our disposal to make sure that we get a grip on this system. We’re going in the right direction and we’ve got more work to do. We won’t hesitate to do it.”
Turning to the latest internal row between Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner over migrant visas, Ms Nandy was pressed on whether she agrees with Ms Rayner’s opposition to Labour’s crackdown.
She responded: “Both of them are friends of mine, and I’ve discussed this issue with them, along with many others, both as members of the cabinet and when Angela was on the backbenches.
“I think we all agree that those people who come to this country and care for our relatives, every one of us in the cabinet, has been touched by that.
“The Prime Minister spoke about it very movingly recently in relation to the death of his father. We are enormously grateful to those people, we will treat them properly, we will pay them properly and we will treat them with respect. But citizenship is not an automatic right.
“It is something that is earned and is earned over many years, and the Home Secretary is setting about restoring confidence in the immigration system by making those rules firm and making those rules clear.
“But she’s right to take care with this, and I think that does pay respect to what Angela Rayner has said in the past, which is that those people deserve our gratitude.
“There’s no quarrel about that in the cabinet, there’s just a very real imperative to get a grip on our immigration system and make sure that we have firm and clear rules and restrictions on who can come here, who can stay here and who can contribute.”
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