Rishi Sunak claims migrants ‘queuing up in Calais’ for Labour government
The Prime Minister was speaking at The Sun’s Never Mind The Ballots leaders’ event.
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Rishi Sunak has claimed migrants are “queuing up in Calais” waiting for a Labour government so they can come to the UK.
He told The Sun’s Never Mind The Ballots leaders’ event that if Sir Keir Starmer becomes prime minister, illegal migrants will not be on the way to Rwanda as they would be under his own plan, but “on our streets putting pressure on public services”.
The Prime Minister added: “By the way, I can tell you now they are queuing up in Calais waiting for a Starmer government so they can come here and stay here.”
The audience applauded his response.
Immigration cropped up repeatedly during the event, which saw the leaders separately interviewed by The Sun’s Harry Cole in front of a live audience who asked questions.
Mr Sunak defended his migration policy and said a Labour government would “release everyone we’ve detained” and “leave them out on the streets”.
Sir Keir said the backlog of asylum claims would double by the end of the year if the Conservatives were re-elected.
“There are 50,000 people not being processed. If we carry on with Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister it will get to 100,000 by the end of the year,” the Labour leader said.
He added that it was “outrageous” to pay hotel bills to accommodate people who are not being processed.
Mr Sunak acknowledged “the numbers were too high” when discussing legal migration, but declined to say who was responsible.
He said: “So we’ve got on and delivered lower migration. I’m not going to defend the levels that I inherited because they were just too high.”
Asked who was to blame for the figures, Mr Sunak said “I’ve been Prime Minister for 18 months”. He was then asked if it was Liz Truss or Boris Johnson’s fault, and replied: “The numbers were too high.”