LONDON — The UK’s new asylum plan will “stop people jumping the queue” to live in the UK, Suella Braverman has said.

The home secretary told the BBC the British public “have had enough” of migrants arriving in small boats.

She was defending new legislation aimed at removing all migrants who illegally cross the Channel. Labour’s Yvette Cooper accused ministers of making the issue “even more chaotic”.

Under the new proposals announced on Tuesday, anyone found to have entered the country illegally will not only be removed from the UK within 28 days, but also be blocked from returning or claiming British citizenship in future.

Those who arrive in small boats would either be returned to their home country, or another “safe third country” like Rwanda.

Asked on the Today program whether the new policy was workable — and where the migrants would go —Braverman said she expected around 40,000 people or more to cross the Channel this year, but acknowledged 80,000 was a possibility.

Braverman said the people who come to the UK by boat “jumped the queue” — although their claims do not get processed any faster than other asylum seekers, and they often wait more than six months for a decision.

She said the government’s deal to send migrants arriving in the UK to Rwanda was “uncapped” — and it could potentially take thousands of people.

“There is considerable capacity if we need it for people to be relocated there and live safe and secure lives,” she said.

She said the UK was also planning to increase its capacity to detain people — but stressed the new law would deter people from making the crossing in the first place.

“If you look at other countries such as Australia, once they were able to relocate people away from the Australian territory, actually they saw a dramatic fall in the numbers making the journey.”

However since the plans to send some UK asylum seekers to Rwanda were announced last April, no one has yet been sent to Rwanda and the plans are still being challenged legally by human rights groups.

Labour’s Cooper said the plans would make “the problems even worse, and make it more chaotic” and “more lives put at risk”.

She told Today there were no return agreements in place, meaning there would be tens of thousands of people in asylum accommodation and hotels.

Cooper also accused ministers of being “irresponsible” in their language. She argued they had focused on “gimmicks” and “rhetoric”.

Asked what Labour would do, she said they agreed with the aim to “stop the boats” — but that they would deal with it differently, by setting up a new cross-border police unit to go after the gangs, overhaul the asylum system and also seek new agreements to return people with Europe.

The United Nations refugee agency has described the moves as “very concerning” and would block even those with a compelling claim.

The UNHCR’s representative to the UK, Vicky Tennant, told BBC Newsnight the measure would break international law.

“We believe it’s a clear breach of the Refugee Convention, and remember even people with very compelling claims will simply not have the opportunity to put these forward.”

The Refugee Convention, first agreed in 1951, is a multilateral treaty that sets out who qualifies as a refugee and the obligations of signatory states to protect them.

Braverman has written to Conservative MPs saying there is “more than a 50% chance” the legislation is not compatible with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), and it is expected to face legal challenges.

She told BBC Breakfast her measures were “lawful, proportionate and compassionate”.

She said ministers wanted to test the boundaries of legal obligations — but believed their plans were within those limits.

“We are confident that we are complying with the law, domestic and international,” she told the Today program. “But we are also pushing the boundaries and we are testing innovative and novel legal arguments.”

Charity the Migrants Rights Network said it was incorrect to say people arriving via small boats were jumping the queue, and that they “end up in a backlog that is the result of poor government infrastructure and years of hostile environment policies”.

It added: “The majority of displaced people stay in neighboring countries to their country of origin or in other countries in Europe. Germany, for example, takes three times the number the UK does. The relatively few that come to the UK do so because they have family ties or speak English.”

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak defended the legislation, saying he was “up for the fight” in the courts. The new law would apply retrospectively to everyone arriving in the UK illegally from Tuesday, he said. — BBC