Reform MP Richard Tice was accused of dreaming up a ‘magnet for migrants’ plan last night after he called for a joint asylum-seeker processing centre in France.
The party’s deputy leader faced claims that such an idea would make the small boats crisis ‘a lot, lot worse’ than it already was.
But last night, Mr Tice stood by his plan and insisted that the migrants crisis ‘can’t get any worse than it’s got now’.
The row erupted after Mr Tice earlier this month advocated creating a joint British-French migrants processing facility on the other side of the Channel.
He told a Politico’s ‘Westminster Insider’ podcast: ‘We need a joint processing centre in Normandy.’
Mr Tice added such a centre could process asylum applications at the similar speed to under the last Labour government ‘in the ‘noughties’ when they were processing people within two weeks’.
He added: ‘They had a week to appeal and they were accepting, give or take, 20 per cent of all applications.’
However, Tony Smith, former director general of the UK Border Force, slammed the plans last night.
Mr Smith told the Mail on Sunday: ‘It’s a very bad idea. It would be a magnet [for migrants}.
‘You would get a huge pull factor into northern France and right across the borderless Schengen zone.’
He added: ‘You would have huge numbers descending…in hope and expectation that they would get across.
‘And disappointed applicants would still take to the boats anyway.’
But in reply, Mr Tice said the current system was ‘already a magnet’ for migrants and said his plan would have ‘exactly the opposite’ effect.
However, last night, Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick also attacked Mr Tice’s idea even though he admitted his own party had made ‘huge mistakes on immigration’ when it was in power.
He said a joint processing centre as proposed by Mr Tice ‘would lead to even more illegal crossing’.
Mr Jenrick said: ‘Asylum shoppers from across Europe would flock to Calais in even greater numbers.
‘I will be the first to admit my party made huge mistakes on immigration. It’s why I resigned.
‘But this proposal would make a bad situation even worse. The only solution is to deport all illegal arrivals back home or to a safe third country.’
