Top Tory left rattled as ‘immigration lie’ is slapped down dwell on air
James Cleverly was left shaking his head when Labour’s Yvette Cooper shut down his ‘lies’ and ‘fantasies’ live on air.
The Home Secretary – who is responsible for trying to implement the controversial Rwanda scheme – came under fire over the UK’s broken asylum system on LBC today, just days after he was confronted with a clip of one of his own aides branding the policy ‘crap’.
Both politicians clashed on immigration numbers and the grim Bibby Stockholm asylum barge – but one assertion in particular left Ms Cooper furious.
Mr Cleverly repeated the claim that Labour would open the door to 100,000 more migrants by working with the EU – and Ms Cooper shut him down instantly, accusing him of talking “garbage”.
In the heated exchange, the Shadow Home Secretary said: “This is just invented. This is fantasy. This is just total garbage. Seriously, he shouldn’t be allowed to just basically make stuff up or tell lies. That is just not on.”
The Labour politician pressed Mr Cleverly on the figure, asking: “What is this 100,000 figure? This is just garbage. It’s invented, isn’t it, James?”
Mr Cleverly then said that the numbers of migrants in Europe are “significantly higher” than the UK per capita, in a bid to defend the “estimation”, but Ms Cooper insisted the 100,000 claim was a ‘lie’.
In 2023, Labour denied it planned to join an existing scheme under which EU countries can accept up to 120,000 asylum seekers a year. But the party said it would be willing to accept migrants from Europe as part of an EU-wide returns package.
Earlier this year, Home Office figures revealed nearly 100,000 asylum seekers are still waiting for an initial decision despite Tory brags about clearing the backlog. The data showed the UK’s backlog stood at a massive 98,599 at the end of 2023 – 16 times higher than when the Conservatives took power.
Voters were left fuming after listening to the interview, and accused Mr Cleverly of interrupting Ms Cooper. One wrote: “Annoying how he’s also allowed to just talk over Yvette too. She managed to make her point though.”
Another said: “Is it me or is Cleverly resorting to mansplaining?” And a third added: “Well done Yvette..about time these liars were called out.”
Elsewhere in the LBC interview, Mr Cleverly admitted he does not know how many people reside on the Bibby Stockholm barge, despite his role as Home Secretary.
“I don’t have the precise figures for today,” the top Tory said. Asked by presenter Nick Ferrari if he had “an idea” of the numbers, he admitted: “I don’t want to guess.”
Meanwhile, Ms Cooper slated the Conservatives’ Rwanda scheme as she fumed: “James Cleverly is conning people. He’s not sending 50,000 people to Rwanda. So far he has managed to send two volunteers to Rwanda in two and a half years. At that rate, frankly it would be centuries before they had even managed to make any inroads into the backlog. It is a con.”
Figures from last year show that Home Office spending on asylum in the UK in 2022/23 stood at £3.97billion – nearly double the £2.12billion the year before.
