A Labour MP has proposed a new policy to "break" the people-smuggling model based in Calais by sending asylum seekers to the Middle East or the Horn of Africa to process claims first.
Jo White, the MP for Bassetlaw and the chair of Labour's Red Wall Caucus, sat down with GB News to set out the legislation she would consider if she were to be Home Secretary.
Speaking to the People's Channel Political Editor Christopher Hope, the Labour MP heaped praise on Shabana Mahmood's "courageous" crackdown on illegal migration since replacing Yvette Cooper back in September.
"Shabana Mahmood has been very courageous, because she's taking on a lot of critics in her own party, including Angela Rayner, whose not very helpful intervention suddenly cropped up in the headlines," the Red Wall MP said.
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Last week, the former Deputy Prime Minister and Sir Keir's leadership rival accused Labour's clampdown on migrants' permanent settlement legislation of being "un-British".
In the same speech, the Ashton-under-Lyne MP also warned "the very survival of the Labour Party is at stake".
But, on a day when Ms Mahmood, along with top Home Office mandarins, went to Paris seeking tougher agreements with the French over the crisis, Ms White backed her Home Secretary adamantly.
The MP, who also sits on the Home Affairs select committee, told GB News: "Shabana Mahmood is absolutely right to be tough. I went over to France in December just to see what was what was happening.
Jo White said the asylum seekers' claims could also be processed in the Horn of Africa or 'as far away as possible'
|GB NEWS
"Obviously I got lobbied about more money, but at the time they'd stopped intervening because they didn't really know how to deal deal with the boats leaving the shore.
"But the the methodology by the criminal gangs has changed because they knew they were being beaten by the French police."
She added she believes the "structures" to tackle the crisis are now in place - but suggested "we can be even tougher than that".
When pushed by Christopher on what she would do as Home Secretary, she said: "I think we should actually process those claims at the nearest point of safety, because that breaks the model."
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Ms White advocated an approach to 'break the model' altogether
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Such a "point of safety" would be either in the Middle East or in the Horn of Africa, the Bassetlaw MP said.
She said: "So you process those claims there. They have to stay there. And if anybody's caught coming here on a boat, they're sent straight back to where they came from."
"Well, the Tories tried that," Christopher responded. "David Cameron's idea was to take migrants from camps and fly them into the UK. That was the idea."
"I don't think they should be even be allowed to come to Calais. They have to be processed as far away as possible. And then that breaks that model completely," Ms White explained.
Back in 2015, the then-Prime Minister David Cameron announced his Government would provide resettlement to Syrian refugees amid the major humanitarian crisis.
He added the asylum seekers would not come from those who had already reached Europe - but those who remained in camps over in Syria still.
The ex-Conservative leader railed against demands to accept refugees from camps across northern France, including Calais.
He insisted a "safe route" direct from Syria was safer and would avoid encouraging illegal people-smuggling from taking place across Europe.
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