UK Conservatives pledge to halt Afghan women’s admission scheme

Chris Philp, the Conservative Party’s home affairs spokesman, has said the party would “immediately stop” the Labour government’s new plan to create legal routes for admitting asylum seekers if it comes to power, a scheme the Labour government says is designed to create safe pathways for vulnerable people.

The programme, which UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced last week, is due to begin this autumn with the involvement of universities, civil society groups and employers. The Labour government said the plan will focus in particular on Afghan women and Palestinian asylum seekers, groups it says face serious risks of violence and abuse.

Criticising the Labour government’s approach, Philp described its immigration policy as “dangerous, naive and detached from the realities on the ground” and stressed that, amid rising levels of illegal migration, creating new asylum routes would be “an absolute mistake.” He is due to set out the main elements of his party’s immigration plan today at the Conservatives’ annual conference in Birmingham, which he says stands in contrast to the current government’s policies.

At the same time, Philp has also spoken of creating a “deportation task force”, a structure he claims could remove 150,000 people from the UK each year. According to him, this would include rejected asylum seekers, “foreign criminals” and those who have remained in the country after their visas expired.

The Conservative official has claimed that, over a five-year period, a total of about 750,000 foreign nationals without the right to remain would be deported from the UK, with migrants who enter the country illegally in small boats given priority for removal.

Philp also said that if the Conservatives win, the “rights of British citizens” will be at the centre of immigration decisions, and that the party’s future government will not grant “any additional privileges for the entry of new migrants.”