A ROW has broken out over immigration between the Bromsgrove MP and a refugee support group.
Bradley Thomas MP publicly backed and signed the Early Day Motion 1142, which expresses grave concern about illegal migrants in the UK and calls for ‘decisive and consistent’ enforcement of immigration laws.
The motion notes the ‘considerable cost to the taxpayer in housing, processing and supporting individuals with no legal right to remain in the country’.
Aims are also to ensure policies designed to ‘identify, detain and deport’ individuals in the UK illegally are ‘backed by the necessary legislative, diplomatic, logistical and financial resources to restore confidence in the rule of law and security of the UK’s borders’.
But Bromsgrove and Redditch Welcome Refugees (BRWR), has branded Mr Thomas’ support of the motion ‘ill-informed and divisive’.
Chair of the group, Yvonne Rendell added: “Support for this early day motion makes it sound like he’s joining Reform.
“He doesn’t appear to have an ounce of compassion for people fleeing unimaginable circumstances to seek sanctuary in the UK.
Its primary sponsor is Rupert Lowe, who won Reform UK a Parliamentary seat in Great Yarmouth before being axed from the party over a row with Nigel Farage and now standing as an independent MP.
Alongside Mr Thomas, the motion has in total 21 signatures – the majority Conservatives (14), as well as one other independent, one Traditional Unionist Voice member, one Reform UK member and three Democratic Unionist Party members.
Mr Thomas said: “Illegally entering our country must never be rewarded. Therefore, if you enter the UK illegally then you should be immediately deported, no ifs, no buts.
“To strengthen our borders, a national strategy is now a necessity. This I believe is the only way to restore confidence in our immigration system.
“We also need to deter further illegal migration into our country by implementing an effective deterrent – and we’re not going to get one out of this weak Government that made scrapping the Rwanda deterrent one of their first decisions.
“We desperately need to redress the balance in favour of the UK taxpayer. We cannot be in denial about the extent of the cost to the British state.
“The interests of the UK taxpayer must be first and foremost. We cannot view UK taxpayers as just being there to shoulder a bill and disregard their legitimate concerns for their communities.”
Mr Thomas suggested there were more than 1million illegal migrants in the UK but the Pew Research Centre which estimated there were between 800,000 and 1.2million in 2017 has since retracted that figure and put it between 700,000 and 900,00.
The University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory stated figures on illegal migrants were ‘highly uncertain and had large margins of error’ due to differences in the definition of such an individual.
Ms Rendell added: “At the moment, so many are languishing in hotels at such huge cost because the previous government essentially stopped processing asylum claims.
“The current government is dealing with those claims and reducing those numbers.
“It’s high time Bradley Thomas told the truth about migration and stopped pandering to the far right with rhetoric obviously chosen to stoke division, prejudice and hatred.”
Mr Thomas had nothing more to add when the Standard offered him a chance to respond to BRWR’s comments.
