Keir Starmer's 'lack of clear purpose' blasted as a handful more migrants are returned to France: 'We must take radical action'

A group of 16 migrants have been returned to France under Labour's "one in, one out" exchange scheme with France, marking the largest number returned in one go.

Praising the latest deportation flight, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: "For many years, illegal migrants entered our country with no consequence. This is the largest return flight under our historic deal with the French.

"And it sends a warning to those considering entering this country illegally.

"If you come here by small boat, you can be sent back.

"This is just the beginning – I will scale up these removals to France. And I will do whatever it takes to secure our borders."

Delivering her verdict on Labour's efforts in tackling the migrant crisis, Ms Holdsworth told GB News: "I think there's a lack of clear driving purpose, and there's a kind of timidity that you don't see in places which have been very successful at stopping illegal migration, like Australia and the US.

"In Australia, they were intercepting boats and actually taking them back.

"In the US, some would say it goes too far, but they've created what they believe to be a very hostile environment for illegal immigration.

"Though I think the figures do bear it out, crossings on the southern border of the US have dropped by 95 per cent."

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Highlighting the removal of the Rwanda scheme, Ms Holdworth explained: "Here people seem to be a bit torn. The Conservative Party was very torn over the Rwanda scheme, I haven't heard anything more about that.

"Even though that kind of model is successful for providing a strong enough deterrent. They talk about leaving the ECHR, maybe that could help, but I think you need lots of different things."

Suggesting that the Government should attempt to "intercept" small boats in the Channel directly, she added: "I think possibly you do have to intercept boats, maybe that's impractical with France. Australia could do it with Indonesia, maybe we can't.

"I think you need a very, very, very strong legal deterrent as well, and I think possibly, yes, some of the international law and the international legal obligations we have, maybe we need to put our self-interest first."

Urging Labour to take "radical action" to tackle the crisis, Ms Holdsworth stated: "Look at Greece, they've suspended asylum claims, because they just feel overwhelmed and they think that the system doesn't work for them anymore.

"So yeah, there's something very timid in the UK about this issue, and I think that unless perhaps, maybe we are willing to take radical action, it can't be solved."

She concluded: "If you look at the US and you look at Australia when they had the strong legal deterrence, it does work because people do make rational decisions. They do think, what is the chance of me being able to claim asylum in this country?

"They're not going to undertake the journey, they're not going to pay the human trafficker if they think there's a big chance for failure, they won't. We know that. We know it's an incentive scheme, we know that in the US they've said that it is all an incentives game, and if you do that, if you manage the incentives correctly, you'll be able to stop it."

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