Braverman wants migrants to be detained indefinitely

Extreme plans backed by home secretary Suella Braverman to stop asylum seekers crossing the Channel have been criticised as unworkable” and completely out of step with British values”.

- ANDY GREGORY

In a clear bid to pressure Rishi Sunak into taking harsher action on small boat crossings, Ms Braverman has written the foreword to a think tank report which calls for all asylum seekers who enter the UK "illegally" to be detained indefinitely and banned from ever settling here.

The home secretary pledged that she and the prime minister will do "whatever it takes" to end the crossings, and is understood to also endorse recommendations to cap the numbers granted asylum at 20,000 a year and to pull the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights "if necessary".

But experts warned that the measures floated in the right-wing Centre for Policy Studies report would amount to the UK abandoning the UN's Refugee Convention, which it signed nearly 70 years ago.

"The government seems intent on doubling down on the hostile environment with increasingly harsh, unworkable policies, which fly in the face of our long-standing international commitment to provide a safe haven to those fleeing war and persecution, regardless of how they escape to the UK," said Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon.

"The asylum system isn't operating effectively, but the answers don't lie in floating more punitive measures that are impracticable and completely out of step with British values.

"The solutions are to be found in tackling the backlog of asylum cases through the creation of a dedicated task force, and in the UK leading the way in developing the safe routes needed to address what is a global refugee challenge," Mr Solomon said.

The report, co-authored by Theresa May's former aide Nick Timothy, also recommended that ministers should legislate to make it impossible to claim asylum in the UK after travelling from a safe country, and proposes mandatory identity cards for migrants.