5 hours ago
8
Asylum seekers who arrive on small boats across the Channel are “wealthy men” who do not deserve the help of the British state, according to the Reform UK MP Danny Kruger.
The former Conservative, who defected last year, said the fact that some migrants were paying people smugglers thousands of pounds – often using their life savings or borrowed money – made them well off. The claim was immediately dismissed by charities who support refugees.
Speaking at the Big Brue festival in Bruton, Somerset, Kruger said: “By the way, most of them [are] comparatively wealthy and fit young men who’ve crossed safe countries to begin the journey to the UK.”
Asked by the event’s moderator, the editor of the Independent, Geordie Greig, how he knew these men were wealthy, Kruger said: “Because they’re paying thousands of pounds. They’re paying thousands of pounds to people smugglers to get here. Comparatively wealthy, compared to the people who I think most of us can regard as really deserving of the compassion of the British taxpayer.”
Seema Syeda, a Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants spokesperson, said it was untrue that most asylum seekers who arrive on boats are wealthy.
She said: “The reality is that most asylum seekers who arrive here are denied the right to work, live off as little as £8 a week, and can end up in destitution. But in the end, whether rich or poor, people fleeing war and persecution deserve to be welcomed. The right to safety is a human right.
“Many people arriving here have been forcibly displaced due to war, genocide or imperialism that the British state has, past and present, funded or supported.”
Earlier this month, Reform politician Matt Goodwin, the party’s unsuccessful candidate at the Gorton and Denton byelection, caused outrage when he said at the party’s annual conference that the “best and the brightest” of the British population had been replaced by “drug-dealing goat-herders” through immigration.
Kruger said Goodwin was correct to make these incendiary remarks. He said: “There are some drug-dealing goat-herders who we’ve admitted to this country, so I mean, it’s factual.”
Asked by Greig if he accepted that language, he said: “Yes I do.” He added: “And they don’t like our country.”
Kruger said he was concerned “about kind of massive cultural transformation. And yes, the admission to our country of many people who do not share the values that we all love, and I’m afraid to say it’s not just recent migrants.”
The Reform MP also complained about second- and third-generation migrants.
He said: “In fact, I think recent migrants are probably more pro-British because they’ve come here for a reason. They want to be here. We’ve got a problem with second- and third-generation immigrants because they are, and it’s a fault of politics that … this has happened.
“We have an alienated generation, many many people, millions of people, for whom they don’t love their country, they don’t think that Britain is great, and they don’t feel that they are part of the mainstream society that we have here, and that is our challenge.”
He further claimed that current policies would cause a civil war. “We continue down the path of segregation and of you know elite virtue signalling, pretending we’re all a lovely multicultural diversity is our strength, and it’s rude to even point out any problems,” Kruger added.
Rachel Millward, the co-deputy leader of the Green party, said: “Reform is a party funded by billionaires that chooses to attack the most vulnerable in our society – people fleeing environmental breakdown, famine and war.
“Instead of stoking division and hatred, just days after anti-immigrant protests brought violence and disorder to our streets, politicians need to step up and offer solutions. We’re calling for more safe routes so that those who need asylum can apply for it before they leave their own country, and never have to face a dangerous crossing in a small boat.”
