Home Office minister criticises ‘cheek’ of complaints from illegal migrants

A Home Office minister has criticised the “cheek” of complaints about processing centres from people who have entered the UK illegally.

Chris Philp made the comment amid chaos at Manston migrant base in Kent, where at one point as many as 4,000 people were being detained for weeks in a site intended to hold 1,600 for a matter of days.

The policing minister also described the centre as legally compliant days after immigration minister Robert Jenrick suggested it was not.

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Mr Philp told Times Radio: “If people choose to enter a country illegally, and unnecessarily, it is a bit, you know, it’s a bit of a cheek to then start complaining about the conditions when you’ve illegally entered a country without necessity.”

Migrant men wrapped in a blankets are kept behind barriers at the Manston airfield migrant processing centre during a visit by home secretary Suella Braverman. Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty ImagesMigrant men wrapped in a blankets are kept behind barriers at the Manston airfield migrant processing centre during a visit by home secretary Suella Braverman. Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Migrant men wrapped in a blankets are kept behind barriers at the Manston airfield migrant processing centre during a visit by home secretary Suella Braverman. Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

He said people who had passed through other countries in Europe “don’t even have to come here”, and described the numbers as “overwhelming”.

“We’re spending something like two or three billion pounds a year looking after people who have entered the country illegally and unnecessarily,” he said.

“I think, frankly, that is pretty generous, actually … our asylum accommodation is better than most European countries.”

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman and Orkney and Shetland MP Alistair Carmichael said: “Chris Philp’s comments reveal a shocking and callous complacency over the disaster unfolding at Manston.

“It is unbelievable that as we hear reports of sexual assaults, disease and chronic overcrowding, his response is to accuse those who complain of ‘cheek’.”

Downing Street later stressed migrants “deserve to be treated with compassion and respect”.

No 10 appeared to distance itself from comments made by Mr Philp as a spokesperson said the number of people at Manston has fallen to 2,600, with 1,200 taken off the site within the last four days.

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The row came after a group of refugees from Manston were left at Victoria station in central London on Tuesday without accommodation, appropriate clothing or money.

Westminster City Council said its rough sleeping service had offered hotel spaces to 11 of these people, and seven had taken up the offer.

On Friday the council said it was trying to get the group to Lunar House in Croydon to be assessed by Home Office officials.

The leader of the local authority, Adam Hug, said the increasing number of refugees in Westminster hotels was putting pressure on local medical services, and called for a “humane and organised” response to the immigration crisis.

Mr Hug said: “The chaos that is engulfing the arrival centre at Manston is now impacting on councils across the country.

“It is not acceptable that people seeking asylum in the UK are effectively dumped at a coach station and left to fend for themselves. We need a more humane and frankly better organised response.”

Mr Hug added: “The issue is that the Home Office seems to have descended into panic with no clear picture of where people are going.

“The Government needs to get a grip of this urgently, and we would like to be part of the solution.”

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A Home Office spokesperson said: “The home secretary has taken urgent decisions to alleviate issues at Manston using all the legal powers available and sourcing alternative accommodation.

“The welfare of those in our care is of the utmost importance and asylum seekers are only released from Manston when they have assured us that they have accommodation to go to – to suggest otherwise is wrong and misleading.”

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