Priti Patel plans ‘biggest overhaul’ to UK asylum system
The UK appears poised to fundamentally overhaul its asylum policy, in keeping with the ruling Tories’ broader hardline approach to immigration issues.
Britain’s hardline Home Secretary, Priti Patel, has pledged to fix the supposedly “fundamentally broken” asylum system.
Addressing the Conservative Party’s annual conference, Patel said she wanted to make extensive changes in order to make the system more “firm and fair”.
Patel claimed the reforms will be made by way of new legislation which will signify the “biggest overhaul” of the asylum system in “decades”.
Striking a combative tone, the Home Secretary proclaimed that the people opposed to her plans were “defending the indefensible”.
Patel’s new initiative comes in the wake of multiple reports that the Home Office is considering plans to send asylum seekers to remote islands in the South Atlantic Ocean.
It also comes on the heels of increasing migrant crossings across the English Channel.
Despite high-level meetings and mutual promises neither the UK nor France appear able to stop the tide.
Indeed, record numbers of migrants – nearly 2000 - reportedly made the cross-Channel crossing in September.
While Patel did not disclose details of her new plans she was careful to say that legislative changes “would take time” to take shape.
In the meantime the Home Secretary pledged she would “accelerate” the UK’s “operational response” to the issue in the interim.
Patel’s plans have already elicited a sharp response from the opposition Labor Party.
Labor’s shadow Home Secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, dismissed Patel’s comments as “more evidence of how lacking in compassion and competence the Tories are”.
"The British people will see through the home secretary's shameless comments about a 'broken system', when the system has been overseen by the Tories for a decade", the shadow Home Secretary added.
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