Former Isle of Wight MP Bob Seely has called for the UK’s asylum system to be treated as a ‘national emergency’.
The former Conservative MP has questioned whether Britain is ‘getting this the wrong way round’ after Police in riot gear were deployed as protesters gathered at Eastney on Sunday, where more than 150 migrants were brought ashore.
Seely says people are ‘angry for a reason’, although he stressed that protesters must obey the law and demonstrate peacefully.
In a strongly-worded intervention, he said:
“The asylum system is now endangering our safety. This should now be treated as a national emergency.
“People are angry for a reason, even if a small minority express it in a way that they clearly should not.”
Seely wants almost all those entering the country illegally to be returned to their home country, France or a third country, with only a ‘very small number of exceptions’.
He says Britain should instead accept a small number of asylum seekers vetted by the United Nations, adding:
“That’s it. Everyone else goes home.”
Seely also claimed those making illegal crossings have paid organised criminal gangs and warned that some arriving in Britain could pose a danger to women, children and men.
His intervention follows Sunday’s major Channel operation, which saw Bembridge and Yarmouth RNLI lifeboats tasked at around 10:35 to a large migrant vessel roughly halfway between the Isle of Wight and Cherbourg.
More than 150 people were eventually brought ashore at Eastney, where protesters gathered and Police deployed officers with riot helmets and shields.
Isle of Wight East MP Joe Robertson has since said he will demand answers from the Home Office over whether people smugglers are opening up new routes further west in the Channel.
Seely has long pushed for tougher immigration controls. As the Island’s MP, he backed the Conservative Government’s Illegal Migration Bill in 2023 and later introduced his own Immigration and Asylum Bill.
However, the Conservatives themselves struggled to get a grip on Channel crossings and the asylum backlog while in Government. A record 45,755 people crossed the Channel in small boats in 2022, while hotels were increasingly used to house asylum seekers.
His successor in Isle of Wight West, Labour’s Richard Quigley, has taken a different stance, joining Labour MPs in thanking HM Coastguard and RNLI crews while defending the Government’s approach.
They said Labour was ‘cracking down’ on criminal smuggling gangs and claimed summer small boat crossings had fallen to a 6-year low, adding:
“We’re not complacent. We still have an enormous job ahead of us – but it’s one this government is going to tackle head on.”
Mr Seeley seems to be missing his erstwhile public persona.
Yes, the immigration problem must be addressed. But does anyone stop to think why so many people feel they have to uproot themselves, leave home, family and culture behind and undertake catastrophically expensive journeys across the world to achieve a decent life? And why do they choose to come here (probably not heard of Farage and his supporting yobs).
The answer to immigration is to help other countries improve the lives of their citizens, by stopping wars, assisting health and agriculture – in fact all the things that our foreign aid budget used to do before it was axed by Mr Seeley’s party. And then there’s the United Nations; what a toothless bunch that has proved to be!
Solutions to immigration are in the West’s hands, but meanwhile we must show the empathy and compassion for which Brits used to be respected.
The man’s name is spelt SEELY!
So well said there
whats happening is nothing short of invasion…..
Absolutely
People get angry because they are NIMBY and there is a risk (although likely low) that the boat was headed for Castlehaven or Watershoot Bay on the basis that they are (along with the Isle of Portland) the closest beaches to the Contentin Peninsula.
Does the moving of the crossings from Calais not mean that the policies in place there from France and the UK are working, so the riskier crossing is being attempted?
Whilst Joe Robertson has freedom to comment as current IW (East) MP, Bob is failed MP. Why did he not use his power when an MP to do something, to make his colleagues in Cabinet listen? Remember this is a man claiming to be an authority on Russian Military and Security, who was not included in an MOD or Intelligence Cabinet Position by Boris, Liz or Rishi? Was it them or him?
Bob was a part of the government that stood have nipped this in the bud.
Bit late now !
That is so true, this has been happening for years
in Kent, now it’s getting closer to the island people
are realising what is happening in the UK, before that no
one on the island cared.
People only seem to care when something affects them
otherwise they couldn’t care less.
It’s the government running it and have been doing so since 1980 and they are being brought and armed to fight anyone who fights back in a civil. Vote RESTORE to make sure we get our rights back and stop the invasion.
Someone is after a job with Farage.
if they allow illegal migrants in the Island will be ruined. Birmingham is already a third world part of the uk they want us to follow them and are even refusing our freedom of speech
Well said Bob Seely
Pity he wasn’t such a would be man of action when he was an MP and the Tories were in power. Sat on his hands then
Surely you’ve only got to look at the size of the UK on the world map to see that we’re at bursting point
Seely was a terrible MP which is why he no longer is one.
Democracy quickly gets rid of the most hopeless cases.
Having broken the rules to share a sausage with Tice during the Covid pandemic is this latest unwanted intervention a sign that he’s about to join the ragtag band of xenophobic halfwits that form the backbone of Reform UK?
“People are angry for a reason, even if a small minority express it in a way that they clearly should not.”
Well you see, expressing ourselves in a way we should hasn’t produced results has it.
In a proper democracy a government carries out the wishes of the people. Even if it doesn’t agree with them. In Britain we just get ignored until it’s election time because the political class is much more interested in power machinations and advancing its personal interests and agendas.
We stopped being a proper democracy some years ago.
Good grief, who resurrected him? Tories are still happy to attempt to profit from stirring the right-wing pots, whilst simultaneously hand-wringing about the violent effects of their deliberate nudging.
And he (and Joe…you’ve gone right down in my estimation) know full well that the Brexit YOU created stopped EURODAC, increased asylum seekers and when the figures went up, and up, and up under your watch chose to corral them into defunct hotels rather than get staff in to process them in a timely manner. Did you really not pay attention when you were warned this would happen? Still busy shouting £350m for the NHS were you?
And now, when Labour has repaired a lot of the damage you caused and is busy trying to work out how to negotiate safe passage in order to stop the boats you have the gall to jump of Farage’s bandwagon for a sniff of relevance?
Question for you: When the thick as mince pitchfork brigade have been triggered to think that we’ve ‘been invaded’ by ‘illegals’ (as even some in the media are calling asylum seekers) what do you suppose might happen to all the hundreds of foreign workers (and their families) already legally invited here to work at their hands? Do you honestly think they could differentiate, or even that they’d care? What will you do then, more unfortunate hand-wringing and disappear into oblivion again?
Millions of us BRITISH people on the mainland have seen first hand what’s been happening for over 20 years! The eradication of our wonderful way of life by certain groups of immigrants that have no desire to integrate. This is an invasion en masses now. Wake up Islanders. Maybe visit Inner Birmingham, East Ham, Bradford. I’m sure you’d be shocked and your minds changed…
what makes” British person”?
Bob, you must be looking for something useful to do now, how about campaigning to stop the slaughter and injustices in Gaza and West Bank?
Aaaaw, poor Bob, out of the spot light due to being totally inept now throws his two penny worth into the debate.