UK to seek asylum ban on refugees crossing the English Channel

British Home Secretary Suella Braverman has set out plans for new powers which would ban refugees who cross the English Channel from claiming asylum and said it was her “dream” to see a government flight deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda.

The new powers would go further than existing legislation and were designed to create a blanket ban on anyone who enters the UK irregularly, including on small boats across the English Channel, from claiming refuge, a government source said.

“If this government truly wanted to stop small boat crossings it would offer safe passage to those who have a viable claim for asylum,” she said.

The previous prime minister, Boris Johnson, had hoped that a plan to deport those arriving illegally to Rwanda would act as a deterrent to those arriving in dinghies and small boats, but numbers hit record levels earlier this year.

She said seeing a flight leaving to take asylum seekers to Rwanda is her “dream” and “obsession”.

Under a deal signed in April, the UK said it would send some migrants who arrive in the UK as stowaways or in small boats to Rwanda, where their asylum claims would be processed.