The Green Party’s Caroline Lucas has told Tory MP Jonathan Gullis that the country “deserves better than you” as the pair clashed over the government’s crackdown on migration.
Appearing on the BBC’s Politics Live show, the outspoken backbench Conservative argued he was “compassionate” as Lucas hit out at the government’s “grotesquely inhumane” illegal migration bill.
The under-fire legislation, which is progressing through parliament, would change the law to make it clear people arriving in the UK illegally will not be able to remain in the country.
The government also plans to send migrants to Rwanda, but the policy has so far been stalled by legal action and no flights have taken off.
The package of measures is an attempt to deter migrants crossing the Channel to the UK, dubbed the “stop the boats” policy.
In one fiery discussion, Gullis contended it was “compassionate” to “stop these journeys from taking place, because there is no need for people to needlessly put their lives in danger by crossing the Channel, there’s no need to put thousands of pounds in the hands of smuggling gangs”.
After Lucas pointed out the only reason that people make the dangerous crossing is because there is a lack of safe and legal routes for refugees, Gullis responded: “This country is a compassionate country”.
Lucas then fired back: “This country is indeed a compassionate country, and it deserves better than you, and it deserves better than the Conservatives.”
Lucas went on to argue that government’s Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) – one of the supposed safe routes for asylum in the UK - was a “joke”.
She said: “In the first three months of this year, almost 1,000 people who were using those boats were from Afghanistan.
“And the reason for that, Jonathan, is because your safe and legal routes from Afghanistan do not work.
“They are an absolute joke. That’s a terrible joke on people who have worked alongside us, whose lives are at risk every day of the week, and we are not actually providing them with those safe and legal routes we promised under the so-called ACRS pathway three.
“So this is one of the channels that people are supposed to come out by. There have been just a handful just in the last few weeks and before that, over a year went by and not one single person came out on that pathway.”
Lucas had earlier called the bill “illegal, immoral, divisive and dangerous”, adding: “I think it’s grotesquely inhumane. It’s cruel. Yes, you bet the Green Party is absolutely against this bill.”
The proposed legislation has come under fire from both the Council of Europe and the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Critics have dismissed the bill as unworkable but right-wing Tory MPs believe the legislation does not go far enough, with some calling for ministers to take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights to gain tighter border controls.
Others on the liberal wing of the party want to see the prime minister commit to establishing safe routes through which asylum seekers can come to Britain.
More than 5,500 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel this year, according to government figures.