Don't trust Labour on immigration they really want open borders, warns Natalie Elphick

The growing number of people arriving in small boats from France over recent years places immense pressure on communities – nowhere more so than my constituency of Dover and Deal, where people disembark from makeshift dinghies onto our beaches or into our port virtually every day. The boats undermine our national security – because we have no ability to control who is arriving or prevent people who pose a threat to public safety.

That’s why the Government’s Stop the Boats Bill is so vital, and why Labour’s attempts to undermine it are so dangerous.

The Bill will make clear for the first time that if you come here illegally, you will be detained and swiftly removed – either back to the country you came from, or to a safe third country like Rwanda.

You will not be able to claim asylum, abuse our modern slavery system, or make spurious legal claims to frustrate your removal.

At every opportunity so far, Labour have voted against the Stop the Boats Bill. And this week the Labour front bench have laid a series of amendments that would make it more difficult to detain and remove illegal migrants.

This shows, yet again, that not only have Labour got no plan of their own to tackle illegal immigration, they simply do not want to. Take, for example, Labour’s amendment to put illegal migrants suspected of terrorism on Terrorist Protection and Investigation Measures (TPIMs) if they can’t remove them.

This sounds tough – who wouldn’t want terrorist suspects to be placed on an electronic monitoring tag and given enhanced surveillance by the police? But in reality it’s an own goal – and all it does is expose the fact that under Labour’s plans, terrorist suspects will have routes to stay in the UK.

Because if you require the Government to prove an illegal migrant is a terror suspect before they are removed and contemplate a court process for that, what you’ve done is create a new route for people to challenge that in the courts, giving potential terror suspects and others an ability to frustrate their removal from the UK. This would take much longer than the fast-track appeals process the Bill currently sets out.

The Government wants to close legal loopholes for illegal migrants, Labour seems intent on creating them. It’s also not clear where Labour intends to remove people to after they’ve been established as suspected terrorists.

For starters, Keir Starmer has pledged to rip up our world-leading partnership to remove illegal migrants to Rwanda. But even if he hadn’t, no safe third country is going to accept people openly suspected of terrorism – because they would be a risk to public order there too.

The only sensible policy, as set out in the Bill, is to simply remove everyone who arrives here illegally - whatever their circumstances, whatever their reasons for coming to the UK, whether they are an economic migrant or worse.

From discussions about my and Sir John Hayes amendment on prohibiting those who put our public safety or national security at risk from making spurious human rights claims to thwart removal I know ministers share our commitment.

We are seeking reassurance that the Bill gives us back control of our borders and protects national security as it needs to do.

The only in-country appeal route will be if you can provide compelling evidence that you face a real and imminent risk of “Serious and Irreversible Harm” in the country that the Home Office is removing you to.

This is an incredibly high legal bar. And even if someone did face a risk to someone in, say, Albania, we would still be able to remove them to another safe country like Rwanda. So, in practice, we should always be able to remove people.

Labour, by contrast, are admitting that some illegal migrants, including suspected terrorists, will be able to stay here and will not be removed under their plans. Because why else would you need measures to keep them under surveillance in the UK?

In trying to sound tough, they have revealed that they are anything but. Labour has a choice. They can vote with the Government to stop the boats or they can vote against and defy the British people’s desire to control our borders.

Will Keir Starmer be prepared to get tough or will Sir Softie strike again? As the number of small boats arriving on Kent’s beaches and ports continue to rise, my constituents, and our whole country, are watching carefully.