Local councillor blasts Labour's failure to fund fleeing Chagossians after signing controversial deal: 'We've been left to foot the bill!'

However, leader of Hillingdon Council Ian Edwards has claimed that it is becoming "increasingly difficult" for the borough to house in influx of fleeing islanders to the UK, and said the Government is "failing" to help fund them.

Speaking to GB News, Edwards revealed that in the first six months of the deal being announced, 55 households fled Chagos to live in the UK, but the numbers have skyrocketed in recent weeks.

Edwards explained: "We have seen the pressures rise quite enormously. In the first six months after the deal was announced, we had just 55 households come into Heathrow, of which 46 required our support for temporary housing.

"In the first seven weeks of this year, we have had 57 households coming in from the Chagos Islands, and all of those have required our support with temporary housing."

Highlighting the importance of the borough of Hillingdon as a "gateway" for the Chagossians to enter the UK, Edwards added: "Hillingdon is the home authority for Heathrow Airport, and we are one of a few number of gateways into the country for people from the Chagos.

"It is becoming increasingly difficult to house people that are returning or coming from the Chagos Islands to the United Kingdom."

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Emphasising the council's efforts to support the Chagossians, Edwards stressed that the issue is not the fleeing islanders, but instead the "failure" of Labour to help fund them.

Edwards said: "The difficulty here is not so much with with the people from the Chagos Islands that are exercising their right, and we are quite willing to support them.

"The difficulty here is that the Government is just failing to fund the responsibility that is now falling onto the local authorities and as a consequence, is falling onto the shoulders of Hillingdon residents."

Responding to Edwards, Martin weighed in on the crisis: "It seems incredible that people, British citizens, Commonwealth sovereign citizens fleeing a policy decision made by the Prime Minister are turning up, as is their right, that they are entitled 100 per cent to be here, and yet a Labour Government could make them be veering towards homelessness because there's simply no room at the inn?"

Edwards concluded: "Well, when they arrive, they are actually declaring themselves homeless.

"So these people do present themselves as homeless and those with families, with children, we have a duty to house, and that is the difficulty, providing the housing during the present housing crisis that's hitting London exceedingly hard.

"And this is not only forcing us to look far further afield in the country to move these families to, but also to move our own household presentations and those that we have presenting from the Home Office hotels that are accommodated in Heathrow.

"We have here not only the arrivals from the Chagos, but we have also the asylum seekers in the hotels."