Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting took aim at Rishi Sunak over his speech in Rome where the Prime Minister warned illegal migration could “overwhelm” European states.
Sunak met with Italian conservatives and right-wingers in Rome to warn of the threat asylum seekers pose, he then suggested that global refugee laws should be changed.
Sunak’s speech raised eyebrows amongst some British MPs over the choice of his language used as he stood with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party.
Read more related news:
Sunak is open to Rwanda Bill changes and is ‘keen’ to ‘get flights off the ground quickly’
Streeting took aim at Sunak and he said, “I thought that was a stunning admission of failure.
“This is the guy who says, ‘One of my priorities is to stop the boats, I’m doing a really great job,’ and then the next minute he’s off to Italy to say the quiet bit out loud to all of his right-wing chums from across Europe, which is that he’s failed.
“He’s failed both to handle an immigration system that works for legal migration, he’s failed to tackle illegal migration and meanwhile he’s pulling his own party apart with this spectacular circus we saw this week over a policy that will not work and is costing us hundreds of millions of pounds already and threatens to offer us hundreds of millions of pounds more.”
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has described Sunak’s Rwanda scheme as “shameful” and “deeply unethical.”
Appearing on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News, Oliver Dowden defended Sunak saying he was “right to Issue this warning.”
Dowden said, “I think the Prime Minister is absolutely right to issue this warning, and indeed it’s not just a warning, it’s something that we have seen elsewhere – we have seen the weaponisation of migration, for example, in the conduct of Belarus in relation to Poland, there’s been warnings from Finland in respect of the conduct of Russia.
“There’s a broader point here, which is that we do have to reassure people that we have got control of our borders and we cannot have this unsustainable situation where we’re enriching people smugglers – the worst people on the earth.”
