GB News presenter Patrick Christys was left exasperated during a fiery row with activist Jonathan Portes as they clashed over Keir Starmer’s plan to deal with migrants.
It comes as Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer unveiled hopes of abandoning the Government’s policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda.
He added that he would abandon the plan to ban cross-Channel migrants from claiming asylum in Britain.
The proposals have drawn criticism from Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who accused Starmer of wanting to make Britain a “dumping ground” for millions of illegal migrants.
WATCH THE DEBATE IN FULL BELOW
Speaking on GB News, economics expert Jonathan Portes irked Christys by suggesting Starmer’s idea would be an “improvement” on the “current chaos”.
Christys questioned Portes about the significant number of people who would need to be housed upon reaching British shores, with the latter suggesting “we do” have enough capacity to deal with the issue.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
“The reason we didn’t have people on our streets in the Covid people is because the Government put the resources in to stop homelessness in the country”, he said.
“If you want to end homelessness in this country, you simply need to take a political decision to do that, we can do it.”
Christys, who appeared amazed at the suggestion, questioned where the houses would come from.
“Did you see homelessness during the pandemic? No”, Portes said.
Starmer described the government approach as unsustainablePA“The Government took a political resources to devote the resources to do this.”
Christys then asked if Portes if he would have an asylum seeker live with him to help aid the housing crisis.
“Would you have an asylum seeker living with you?”, Christys asked.
“If I had the right type of house and the right type of circumstance, yes”, Portes responded.
Suella Braverman has blasted Keir Starmer's migrant plans
PAThe GB News presenter probed further, stating that Portes has a “problem”, and continued by asking what sort of home he has, and whether he has a spare room.
“I have a bedroom and an office which I share with my partner”, Portes responded.
“So not for you, but we could end homelessness, but it would be someone else’s house?” Christys asked.
Portes responded: “We could end homelessness by putting people in houses.”
Christys soon interjected, commenting: “But not yours.”
The economist argued that giving up homes would not be necessary should the Government opt to carry out the “political decision” he made reference to.
“You don’t need to requisition houses to do it, we didn’t do that in the late 2000s”, he said.
In a vicious war of words with the Government, Starmer branded Braverman’s suggestion of making the UK a “dumping ground” for migrants “nonsense”.
This comes despite MPs demanding "drastic action" on migration, with some saying that it is the primary issue put forward by their constituents.
Starmer indicated he could be prepared to do a deal with Brussels which would involve the UK taking a quota of asylum seekers who arrive in the bloc in exchange for the ability to return people who cross the English Channel.
But he insisted that his focus was on ensuring that an anti-terrorism-style international crackdown could smash the gangs behind the “vile” trade, preventing people leaving in small boats from France in the first place.
