Blair aide's 'nuclear option' to detain migrants on remote Scottish island

LABOUR considered detaining asylum seekers on the Isle of Mull as part of a "nuclear option" to slash the number of migrants coming to Britain, files reveal.

- Cyril Dixon

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair believed our system for processing applications 20 years ago was "mad" and urged his advisers to "search out ever more radical measures".

They included scrapping the system altogether and telling immigration officers at the border to simply turn "suspicious" applicants away.

One proposal put forward in 2003 was to hold newcomers in the Hebridean beauty spot until their right to stay in Britain was assessed.

This is detailed in confidential documents from the Blair years which have been declassified and published today at the National Archives in Kew.

Crisis

They make surprising reading with Sir Keir Starmer's Labour bitterly opposed to the Tories' current approach to the small boats crisis.

The party has vowed to scrap the Rwanda scheme if it wins the next election after branding it a "gimmick" which "isn't going to work".