Alex Armstrong and Ellie Costello left Labour MP Steve Reed stuttering as they challenged him about immigration figures live on GB News telling him he was “misleading”. The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government appeared on the channel’s breakfast show as migrant arrivals on small boats hit a record high. The figure is set to hit 200,000 for the first time since the crisis began eight years ago, after another 800 arrivals over the weekend. The total stood at 199,828 by Sunday night — meaning just one more boat could push the figure over the threshold.
“This government has removed now over 60,000 people who had no right to be here. We are closing down the hotels that were full of asylum seekers opened by the Conservative government.
“Some of the Conservative ministers who did that now sit in Reform UK, they opened the hotels,” he claimed.
“We are closing the hotels, and we’re able to do that because we’re removing people have no right to be here. If people cross our channel, no, they will be sent back again. They won’t come…”
He was interrupted by Armstrong, who told him: “That is that’s misleading. Yes, you are sending a record amount of people that shouldn’t be here back. You’re talking about illegal migrants that have come into the country.
Alex Armstrong and Ellie Costello challenged a Labour minister about immigration figures (Image: GB News)
“But of those who have come over here on small boats, only 7,612 have been deported. So it’s not much of a deterrent, is it? We’ll get that many coming into the country in a year, and that’s over the course of almost two years of government. It’s not a very good record to say you’ve only deported 7000 illegal migrants.”
Stuttering Reed answered: “We are removing people who have no right to be here, and… we are working with the French government [so] we can take more action on the French coast to stop people are coming across the channel in the first place.
“The Prime Minister this weekend was at the European political Summit, which is…about the whole of Europe, not just the European Union, looking at what more we can do with our friends right across Europe, whether they’re EU or outside the EU, sSo we can tackle this problem at source.
“We can’t do it on our own. We’re working more closely with the French, and we are deporting more people who have no right to be here than ever before.”
