UK Minister Criticises ‘Cheek’ of Illegal Immigrants Complaining About Accommodation

Detainees inside the Manston short-term holding centre for illegal immigrants wave to members of the media outside, near Ramsgate, Kent, southeast England, on Nov. 3, 2022. (Daniel Leal /AFP via Getty Images)

A British minister has criticised the “cheek” of illegal immigrants complaining about conditions at their temporary accommodations when UK taxpayers are spending billions every year looking after them.

Pro-immigration campaigners are threatening legal action against UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman over conditions at the Manston holding centre for illegal immigrants in Kent, where at one point as many as 4,000 people were being detained in a site intended to hold just 1,600.

Lawyers on behalf of Detention Action, an NGO, and a woman held at Manston sent an urgent pre-action letter to the Home Office on Nov. 1, slamming “the unlawful treatment of people held at the facility” and the “egregiously defective conditions” there.

But Chris Philp, a Home Office minister, said the centre is “legally compliant” and the UK’s asylum accommodation is “better than most European countries.”

Talking to Times Radio on Nov. 4, Philp said, “If people choose to enter a country illegally and unnecessarily, it is a bit of a cheek to then start complaining about the conditions when you’ve illegally entered a country without necessity.”

He said that people who had passed through other countries in Europe “don’t even have to come here,” and described the numbers as “overwhelming.”

“We’re spending something like two or three billion pounds a year looking after people who have entered the country illegally and unnecessarily,” he added.

‘Compassion and Respect’

Philp’s comments were criticised by opposition parties. The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael said the minister’s remarks “reveal a shocking and callous complacency over the disaster unfolding at Manston.”

Later, Downing Street appeared to distance itself from Philp’s comments.

Asked if Philp was speaking for the government, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman said that the illegal immigrants “deserve to be treated with compassion and respect.”

“Obviously the current approach is not working and it is placing huge pressures—both in terms of on the government and on the local area—and that is presenting significant challenges, which is why we continue to work both with French colleagues and more broadly to try and resolve this issue.”

Downing Street said the number of people at Manston has fallen to 2,600, with 1,200 taken off the site within the last four days.

PA Media contributed to this report.