Penny Mordaunt compares Starmer to 'Beach Ken' over migrant plan saying he has 'zero balls'

Hitting out at the Leader of the Opposition's plan for migration, unveiled this morning, Mordaunt said: "The Labour Leader is Beach Ken.

"Beach Ken stands for nothing on shifting sands in his flip flops staring out to sea, doing nothing constructive to stop small boats or grow the economy.

"And when we examine his weak record on union demands, on border control, on protecting the public and stopping small boats, we discover that - like Beach Ken - he has zero balls."

Starmer's new plan to tackle illegal migration will involve a cross-border approach to tackling criminal gangs.

He said he is planning to seek an EU-wide returns agreement for asylum seekers who arrive in Britain, which could involve the UK agreeing to a quota of migrants it will be forced to accept from the EU each year.

Hitting out at the plan, Home Secretary Suella Braverman said Starmer will make Britain a "dumping ground" for migrants.

The Home Secretary accused the Leader of the opposition of pandering to the EU, warning that his plan will not stop the boats.

Meanwhile, Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick accused the party of a "political stunt", adding that it "remains the party of unlimited and uncontrolled immigration."

In his first significant intervention on the issue of migration, Starmer said he would expand the use of serious crime prevention orders, which can be used to restrict the movement of individuals and freeze assets.

Unlike normal sentencing, the penalties can be applied to suspects before they have been convicted.

The Labour leader promised to expand the use of serious crime prevention orders, which can be used to restrict the movement of individuals and freeze assets.

Starmer explained: "They’ve been used, these powers, for terrorism, for drug trafficking, but they’ve never been used for serious, organised immigration crime.

"My own view is that they should be used for that."

In an interview with the Times, the Leader of the Opposition said: "I was involved in this sort of work when I was director of public prosecutions.

"What I want to replicate is the model that I used for very serious organised crime across borders.

"That involves real-time intelligence sharing. It involves decisions about what evidence can be used, where a case is going to be prosecuted, and then operational details about where arrests are going to take, at what time."

Hitting out at the plans, Braverman said: "Finally we see Sir Keir Starmer’s migration plan. He’ll let Brussels decide who comes to the UK.

"He’ll agree to make Britain the dumping ground for many of the millions of illegal migrants that Europe doesn’t want. And none of this will stop the boats."

Jenrick added: "EU rules show that under Labour’s short-term approach Britain will be forced to take more than 100,000 illegal migrants from the safety of Europe each year, disregarding the will of the British people to cut numbers and stop the boats.

"Sir Keir is utterly unprepared to take the tough but necessary decisions to stop the boats, taking the easy way out which will not fix the problem.

"For all their political stunts, Labour remains the party of unlimited and uncontrolled immigration."