20 Jun JAMES CLEVERLY SAYS WETHERSFIELD ASYLUM CENTRE MAY BE EXPANDED
CONSERVATIVE MP Sir James Cleverly has said the government may expand Wethersfield as an asylum accommodation centre because they have “completely lost track of illegal migration.”
Speaking on GB News Sir James Cleverly said: “When I was home secretary, and indeed, before I became Home Secretary, I made the point that Wethersfield was not the right place for this asylum accommodation centre. You can see from the aerial photographs that this is a very isolated site in the middle of rural North Essex.
“It is fine for its original purpose, which was a Second World War air base. It is no good as an asylum accommodation centre. I said that at the time, I was overruled – you don’t win every argument in government.
“But I’ve also made the point that expanding it would be completely wrong, and the Labour government have completely lost track of illegal migration.
“They thought it was going to be easy. The numbers are now up by over 30% year on year, and in order to claim some kind of headlines, they’re now saying that they’re going to close asylum hotels when they’ve got no plan to reduce the numbers.
“I don’t think that the good people of Wethersfield should bear the brunt of what has basically been a real failure by the Labour government.
“When you look at what government departments say, you need to look at the detail. They said there are currently no new plans. And I’m really uncomfortable, because that gives them a little bit of fudge factor.
“The Prime Minister said that he was going to close Wethersfield. Under the Conservatives, when we were in government, there was a closure date of April 2027. They’re now saying there are currently no plans to expand the site, but the numbers of arrivals are going up.
“They say they’re going to close the hotels. They have got to put those people somewhere. And unfortunately, they are leaving themselves wiggle room when it comes to Wethersfield.
“I’m really worried that they’re going to renege on their promise at the election and increase the number of people at Wethersfield.
“We never pretended it was going to be that easy [to stop the boats] And anyone that comes on and says, ‘oh, it’s really easy, all we have to do is do X, Y or Z’ either doesn’t understand the situation or is lying.
“This is a difficult thing to deal with, but the Labour government, almost in their first act upon taking office was to scrap the Rwanda scheme that I spent a huge amount of time negotiating with the Rwandan government.
“I was accused by Yvette Cooper, who clearly has a vested interest in undermining my position. What I said was that the focus on [Rwanda] to the exclusion of other things was wrong.
“I always made the point that we should be looking to deter people from getting here and having somewhere that we can send people that we can’t send home, whilst also making sure we get a grip of the supply chain.
“So my criticism of Rwanda, as much as it was, was an over reliance on it by some of my Conservative colleagues, and I stand by that. It was always going to be part of a wider range of actions.
“But the Labour Party scrapped it. They also scrapped other things in the legal migration act, so they’re trying to achieve more by doing less. Unsurprisingly, the numbers are going through the roof.”
Discussing the latest polling results putting the Conservatives in 2nd place, he said: “Kemi is a long standing both friend and colleague, and the fact is, she won the leadership contest fair and square. And I’m a big boy; I take that on the chin.
“She is ferocious when it comes to defending the things that really matter and I completely back her in that. It is an incredibly difficult job, and anyone running for the leadership understood that, me included.
“But what we have seen is that rather than being distracted by the noises from the periphery, she has set about attacking the Labour Government on their failures. She has been really consistent, for example, on those rape gangs. And whilst the Labour government was trying to kick that into the long grass, she has stayed focused.
“Because of that focus, she pushed the Labour government into commissioning the Casey review. That review has bumped the Labour government into a full national inquiry, which is what Kemi was campaigning for right from the get go.
“So it will take time, but she is proving her worth every single day and getting the Labour Party on the back foot and showing the Conservatives are the only real, credible opposition to this woeful, appalling, inept Labor Government.”
The former foreign secretary said the UK should be defending a democracy against Iran and it’s bid to acquire nuclear weapons.
“Labour are all over the place and it’s really telling that they keep telling us about how concerned they are about this, how concerned they are about that.
“Frankly, I don’t give a damn about the Labou Party’s emotional position. What I want to know is, are we going to defend democracy? Are we going to be active in ensuring that Iran doesn’t acquire a nuclear weapon?
“So yes, of course, we need to talk to Israel about credible de-escalation, but the reason this happened is because Iran was pursuing acquisition of a nuclear weapon.
“And this is a country, who has, in their constitution, the eradication of Israel as a nation state which is of course completely unacceptable.”
