How MP brilliantly shamed Labour in illegal immigration debate - 'Since 1971 it's been a criminal offence for a non British citizen to enter the UK without leave'

He said: "Since 1971, it has been a criminal offence for a person who is not a British citizen to knowingly enter this country without leave to do so.

"Yet since the start of 2021, more than 125,000 people have come to the UK illegally in small boats—about 94 people every day."

O'Brien said this was a "huge issue" and was "unfair on those who have played by the rules and come here legally."

He said: " It undermines attempts to get the kind of high-skill, high-wage migration that all politicians say they want and it blows a hole in our attempts to keep dangerous people out of the country.

"Most of the people in the small boats are young men—nine out of 10 are men, and about three quarters are aged 18 to 39.

"The overwhelming majority of these people will claim asylum. They know that if they can make it to the UK, they will be able to stay by one means or another—most will be granted asylum, and, of those who are not, very few will be removed."

O'Brien noted that between 2019 and 2022, only about a fifth of applications were refused, and only one in 20 people were actually made to leave the country through enforced or voluntary returns.

Over the last ten years asylum grant rates have steadily increased from less than a third in 2004 to around four fifths now.

"Those coming in the small boats know the bottom line: if they can get to the UK, they can stay. As long as that is the case, more and more people will come," O'Brien added.

O'Brien continued to slam the Labour Government for their proposed ways to tackle illegal immigration.

First, he said the Government are "trying to process people faster, which, in practice, means granting more people asylum more quickly" meaning the costs of the asylum system disappear into the wider welfare system.

The Government are also trying to increase deportations of those who should not be here, which O'Brien questioned as when Starmer was campaigning to be the leader of the Labour Party he "signed a letter calling for the suspension of a flight to deport 50 offenders to Jamaica and the suspension of all such future charter flights."

The Tory MP hurled questions at the Minister including "what will the Government achieve, by when? Are we talking about enforced returns or all returns? By when will we reach what level of deportations?"

O'Brien went on to question the Minister on what the Government plans to do when it comes to countries that will not take their nationals back, such as Afghanistan, Iran and Syria, which account for a very large share of illegal immigration to the UK.

The Government abandoned the Rwanada scheme without another alternative to sending failed asylum seekers to safe third countries, a decision the Tory MP branded as "rash."

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Finally, O'Brien asked the Minister about the "underlying reasons" why people come from safe third countries to the UK.

The MP said: "I said at the start that people know that, as long as they can make it to the UK, they will be able to stay. As long as they know that, they will continue to come.

"Successive Governments since 2018 have worked with France and other allies to improve enforcement. There have been some results from that, but on its own, it is not going to be enough. We need people to realise that crossings are futile so that they do not step into a deadly boat in the first place."

O'Brien argued that unless we are prepared to have completely open borders, there will always be people who come to the UK illegally even from safe countries.

He explained that 2,233 people from India have come on small boats despite India being the world's largest democracy with a booming economy.

"But we have given—over the same period that the boats have been operating—1.3 million non-visitor visas to people from India," O'Brien said.