Former Labour MP Bill Rammell and GB News host Nana Akua have clashed over Prime Minister Keir Starmer's newly announced plans to send refused asylum seekers to overseas "return hubs".The heated exchange centred on comparisons between Starmer's proposal and the previous Conservative government's Rwanda deportation scheme, which Labour scrapped upon taking office last July.READ THE FULL STORY HERE
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00:00actually have to come to the UK anyway. We'll still pay all the legal bills and everything else
00:04because they're appealing and appealing and appealing. It's only at the very, very, very last
00:07minute that they may get sent back. Bill Rummel. With respect, I disagree. I think this is really
00:13worth pursuing because this offshore sending of people who failed the asylum process, it's one,
00:21it gives us a means to remove them from the country. Two, it will act as a deterrent. This
00:26is not the same as Rwanda. Why? Because Rwanda was overturned. It was a deterrent. Rwanda was
00:32overturned by the courts, not just European courts but British courts, because of sending people to
00:37a country with major human rights concerns. It also didn't work as a deterrent because only about
00:45100 people would have been sent. It hadn't started. It was working. It was scalable. If you looked at the estimates,
00:51it wasn't scalable. It was. But the point is it's a deterrent, so you don't need to be
00:56loads of things, loads of space for people in a deterrent. And it was, it was absolutely scalable.
01:01But the point is it was a deterrent. And we had Patrick Christie interviewing migrants who were
01:06waiting for Keir Starmer to take office so they could cross the channel. And they, and that's from their
01:11own mail saying that the Rwanda, they're put off by Rwanda. I don't think it was ever going to be a
01:16long-term deterrent. But you don't know, do you? Don't know. But hold on. Another difference between
01:21that scheme and what is being explored at the moment is that this is actually backed by the
01:26UN Commissioner for Refugees, which protects you from the legal challenge. But doesn't the UN also use Rwanda anyway?
01:32Yes, it does. The United Nations have used Rwanda as a processing centre.
01:36To keep girls in Afghanistan who are in danger. So Rwanda was used by the UN, the very people you're
01:41quoting. Yeah, but I'm sorry. You know, this just wasn't just European courts. It was British
01:47courts who overturned it because of the human rights concerns. My concern about this is actually
01:53the time scale. And I think we need this to be brought forward. I don't know what happened
01:58with Albania. My understanding is Albania wasn't credibly in the running. And it just underlines
02:04one of my beefs about the government after nine months, that the communications is bluntly not
02:09effective. Bill, can I ask you, we had a discussion last weekend about Keir Starmer. I suggested he was
02:15reacting to reform's election result. You said, no, they've had this white paper in the pipeline for
02:20six months. But it's clear since the election two weeks ago or so, Keir Starmer's tweeted about
02:25migration 15 times. He's talking about getting tough. I won't stand for it, this and that.
02:30You have to concede. He is trying to... My introduction on my show was about them copying
02:37reform. You have to concede slightly, I beg you please, that Keir Starmer is reacting to reform
02:41with this kind of rhetoric. On tone, you may be right, but on substance, not. You know, go back
02:47to the manifesto and nothing got into the Labour manifesto without Keir Starmer's explicit endorsement.
02:53And there's a clear commitment to reduce net migration and to wean us off a reliance on foreign
02:59workers. That's built into the party's prospectus for power. And all the measures that have been
03:04taken, the chair of the Migration Advisory Committee estimates by 2028 net migration will
03:10be down to 240,000 from almost a million that we inherited. Now, if that is achieved, we can have
03:16a debate about is that the right level, do we need to go further? But it will be light years better
03:20than the situation we inherited. It will be. I mean, my other issue with this is, is the moment we let
03:26these people into our country to wander amongst the countryside and wherever they want to go,
03:30A, they can just disappear, which many of them do. But B, within the 10 years that it takes them
03:35to appeal, they meet people, they have families, and then that gives them their final claim to stay
03:41right to a family life. We have to stop this. They shouldn't be here in the first place.
03:45Look, Bill, it's costing a fortune. Hold on. Right to a family life. One of the very welcome
03:50changes within the white paper is reframing Article 8, which is the element of the European
03:55Convention on Human Rights that leads to these ludicrous rulings, like you're allowed to stay
04:00in the country because your kids like chicken nuggets. That is unacceptable, and it's part of
04:05the way that we tackle this problem. All right. Let's talk about the Foreign Secretary,
04:09David Lammy. Apparently, he yelled F French at me, says the cab driver. Foreign Secretary,
04:16yeah, he apparently said it twice over a furious rail, over a taxi fare. Bill? I don't believe
04:22it for a minute. What bit don't you believe? That he yelled F French at me. Well, he might
04:27have done. If I drove away with all your stuff in the back of my car, you might say something
04:31like that. Well, I know David Lammy, and I don't believe he would have done that. However,
04:34I believe he would have done that. David and his wife were bluntly the victims of a scam
04:38and a crime. They agreed a price, and the Foreign Office officials who were accompanying him
04:44agreed a price at the beginning of the journey. At the end of the journey, because the driver
04:49had worked out who Lammy was, he tried to charge him £600. But what's he doing, getting
04:53the equivalent of an Uber? Right. And that's the point I would go on to make. I was a Foreign
04:58Office Minister for three years. Regularly overseas, I would have protection officers with
05:03me. And certainly the Foreign Secretary, even in this country, had protection officers.
05:08And I don't know why or how David was allowed to go on a 600-mile journey on his own.