‘God help us!’ Furious GB News row as Labour MP grilled over councils ‘handing gift cards to asylum seekers’

New findings suggest taxpayers are footing the bill for migrants to go to the circus, play crazy golf and receive significant sums worth of Amazon gift cards.

Gardiner insisted the Government is getting a grip of the issue and said he “does not condone” the shocking revelations.

He argued: “The Government is now pushing right into the illegal working market and trying to address that. It’s a huge draw for people to get in illegally.

“There’s not one silver bullet. The one in one out policy will ultimately not make a difference to the numbers at the moment but it has established that there is a shared responsibility and for the first time, we will have processing of asylum claims outside of the UK.

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“We know a certain amount of people coming here will be pre-vetted as people who have a well-founded fear of persecution. It’s a pilot phase. If we can ramp that up and look at the vast majority of people coming here, it becomes a deterrent.

“People know that if they come here on the small boats, they are not going to be accepted. The agreement is now in place with France to do that. That’s why this deal is so important.”

Yusuf expressed cynicism at the new UK-France agreement unveiled today by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, saying Britain is a “soft touch” and migrants will be enjoying a better standard of life whether they are working or not.

“Fundamentally, we are in this situation because people get free trips to the circus, free trips to the safari park, not because of the working opportunities, they could work in France illegally”, he said.

“We need to leave the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights), stop the boats leaving our Navy. This notion we have to work with our international partners in relation to our own laws and borders, no.”

Gardiner then repeatedly asked the question, “how do you return them to France if they won’t accept them?”, accusing Yusuf of failing to answer.

“This is the flaw in your policy”, he added.

“We have the agreement that France will take back people. You will not have that.”

Yusuf asked, “how long is it going to take to send back just the number of people who have come since that agreement was signed? It will take seven months just to send them back.”

The Labour MP repeatedly interjected by asking Yusuf to “answer the question”.

Michelle Dewberry interjected to say: “I am not in politics. I am just a person with a molecule of common sense.

“Why is all the conversation about returning people to France? It should be about stopping them in the first place. We should have used fishing rights as leverage, which we have handed over with nothing in return.

“I would have really strong KPIs in place for this money we are sending them. It is so insulting to people. I would tell you to slash these boats.

“Then you don’t have this problem of ‘how will I return you to France?’, because they haven’t left France in the first place.”

Gardiner responded: “That’s why it’s a success we have managed to negotiate a change in French law so French police now can intervene in shallow waters, which their law prohibited previously.

“Slowly, incrementally, we are making the changes necessary to sort the problem.”

Yusuf said: “If that is a success, then God help us in terms of what a failure looks like. Boat crossings are at record levels and all we have is rhetoric from Keir Starmer.

“None of this is going to make the blindest bit of difference.”

France is preparing to implement new maritime tactics to intercept migrant boats at sea for the first time, provided vessels are within 300 metres of the shore. Officers have already tested methods including using knives to slash the rubber tubes of dinghies in shallow waters.

French authorities have also deployed jet skis to release underwater nets designed to snag the propellers of small boats' outboard motors.

These aggressive interception techniques mark a significant shift in France's approach to preventing Channel crossings.

The French have faced sustained criticism from British politicians for releasing migrants after intercepting their boats.

This practice has enabled migrants to make repeated crossing attempts until they succeed in reaching UK waters.

Channel crossings have surged, with more than 22,500 migrants reaching the UK in small boats so far in 2025, up 50 per cent on the same period in 2024.