Emily Thornberry has been challenged to spell out Labour’s plan for stopping the boats after criticising Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda Bill during a fiery exchange on BBC’s Question Time.
One audience member said: “I’m not sure I agree with every single aspect of the Rwanda plan.
“But at the same time, I feel a little bit cheated as a Brexit voter. I wanted us to take back control of our borders or laws.
“But as we’ve seen this week, it’s difficult to even get this pass through our own parliament. Not to mention the European laws and everything else that we’re tied into still.”
Speaking during the show, broadcast live from Peterborough on Thursday night, he told the Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales: “I have to say, I’m not too sure but Emily’s very quick to criticise the plan.
“But then what’s your plan? You know, there has to be a plan. We’re a small island. We haven’t got room for everyone.
“I don’t knock anybody that’s wanting to come to the UK for a better life. We would all do that.
“If if it was better for us to go somewhere else and some do but at the end of the day, there has to be a plan to solve this problem out.”
Ms Thornberry hit back by branding Mr Sunak’s plan a “gimmick” and saying Labour would target human-trafficking gangs.
She said: “Quite frankly, once they’re in a boat to the UK these gangs don’t care what happens, of course they don’t care.
“They do not care whether they live or die. They’re in the boat, they’re on their way. They’ve given them the money.
“And that’s that. And what are we doing? We’re allowing ourselves to be distracted by a bit of nonsense in Westminster, which we know is not going to work. It was never going to work.
“And the idea that we have spent £400 million on sending nobody to Rwanda so that the government can say, ‘Oh, we’re doing something about it. And we can just relax, blame everybody else.'”
