Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of being “anti-British” once again in a fresh row over asylum seeker costings.
The Home Office is facing backlash after refusing to disclose the “sensitive” cost of furnishing flats for asylum seekers.
The Information Commissioner ruled in favour of keeping these costs secret, arguing that revealing them could put asylum seekers “at risk of protests and harms”.
Hitting back at the Home Office, Reform UK MP Lee Anderson has argued that taxpayers have a “right to know how their money is spent”.
Sir Keir Starmer has been criticised after the Home Office refused to disclose the costings of asylum accommodation
PA / GB News
Reacting to the latest development in the growing asylum seeker crisis, former Chairman of Reform UK Ben Habib told GB News that Starmer is “working in opposition to the interests of this nation”, and criticised the move the Labour Government.
Habib fumed: “This refusal to hand over perfectly legitimate information to the British taxpayer about how their money is being spent is yet another example of how our government stands in opposition to us.
“We know that the info is going to be embarrassing for the government because otherwise they would have released it. We know it’s going to reveal that lots of money has been spent on fitting out flats for illegal migrants who’ve come to this country, we know that already, and their refusal to disclose it just confirms it.”
Claiming that the Labour Government are “promoting the interests of those who have entered Britain illegally”, Habib admitted that his “heart and stomach sink” every time he hears a new decision by Labour.
Protests have been sparked in recent months as Britons have become frustrated by the UK’s growing migration numbers
PA
Habib told GB News: “Both my heart and stomach sink every time I hear how our government is governing us – how it promotes the interests of people who’ve entered this country illegally over and above and to the detriment of the British people.
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“It’s so embarrassed about the information on money it’s spending on people who have no right to be in this country, that it quashes freedom of information. We already have the quashing of freedom of speech – now they’re just not going to tell us what they’re doing with our money, because they know that we’re going to be furious about it.”
Highlighting the fury of British voters towards Labour over their handling of illegal migration, Habib claimed that Starmer’s Government are “standing in opposition” to the interests and concerns of the nation’s people.
Habib recalled: “When I was standing in Wellingborough, there was an elderly couple who brought to my attention that the council was going to repossess their home, so they could settle migrants who’ve come to this country, largely single young men from North Africa.
“You just can’t make this up. This is a British government standing, in my view, in opposition to the interests of this nation and to the interest of the people of this nation.”
Ben Habib accused Starmer of being ‘anti-British’ with his stance on illegal migration
GB News
Hitting out directly at Starmer, Habib affirmed his claim that the Prime Minister is “anti-British”, and called for the information on asylum costings to be made available to the public domain.
Habib concluded: “I’ve been saying for a while now that Keir Starmer is anti-British.
“You see that in every step he takes, that information is legitimately our information – it should be in the public domain.
“If they’re embarrassed about it, it makes it doubly important that it’s in the public domain. We need to know what they’re doing.”
In response to the Freedom Of Information request, the Home Office claimed that accommodating asylum seekers was a “highly emotive and sensitive” issue, that had resulted in public protests and disorder outside sites once their locations had been revealed.
The Home Office told the commissioner: “It is common knowledge that vulnerable asylum seekers are targets of reprisals or reactions, and asylum-seeking individuals or groups of asylum-seeking individuals have been threatened and harassed in the past.”