Ex-Border Force boss hits out at Shropshire 'migrant street' being 'imposed' on community: 'Fundamentally wrong!'

A former Director General of UK Border Force has criticised the "fundamentally wrong" decision by the Labour Government to move asylum seekers into new-build accommodation.

Speaking to GB News, Tony Smith expressed his outrage at a scheme set to house almost 100 asylum seekers in brand new homes in Shropshire.

Some 83 asylum seekers have been earmarked to move into the 21 smart new-build homes in Stoke Heath, worth £250,000 each.

The remote village in the West Midlands is surrounded by vast fields and greenery, with a population of less than 500 people.

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Reacting to the move by the Home Office, Mr Smith told GB News that there may be a communication "gap" between Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and Home Office ministers.

He said: "I suspect there'd be quite a lot of people running around in the Home Office right now, trying to figure out what's happened here.

"You've got the Home Secretary saying that she's not going to permit something like that to happen, and then it has happened.

"It only really works if you've got trust in communicating between your senior officials and your ministers, so it sounds to me like a bit of a gap there on this housing issue."

Criticising Ms Mahmood, Mr Smith argued that the decision to move asylum seekers into new-build accommodation is nothing more than a "political statement".

He said: "They should not be moving asylum seekers into new homes at all. I think that's a political statement, to be fair to the Home Secretary.

"I hope we do get very clear guidance coming out to the public about what is going on with asylum accommodation and Serco, and what circumstances the indigenous population are being displaced in favour of asylum seekers on financial and economic grounds."

GB News host Martin Daubney expressed his outrage at the decision, declaring it a "betrayal" of Britons by the Labour Government.

Mr Smith responded: "All I would say is that does not seem right to me, and I'm sure it doesn't seem right to the vast majority of your listeners.

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"I feel the frustration here and I think there is a problem in this country, has been for a long time, about integration and resettlement of migrants."

The former border boss argued that asylum seekers are continually being "imposed" on communities, and the country has a "problem" with integration.

He said: "Whatever your views are on immigration, legal or illegal, we're not good at integrating people.

"We're not good at persuading our communities that there is positives to bringing people into your community.

"These homes are going to people we don't know. We've got no documents, we're not being told very much about them, and they're being kind of imposed upon communities without any community engagement. That is fundamentally wrong in my view."

Mr Smith urged the Labour Government to "get a grip" on community cohesion and the migrant crisis.

He concluded: "We do need to get a grip on community cohesion and liaison between Home Office, the local authorities and the asylum support teams to make sure this is properly being exposed because at the moment really worried about it. I don't think it is being properly discussed and debated out there."

GB News understands that the Stoke Heath development pre-dated the new processes introduced by Ms Mahmood earlier this year.

A Home Office spokesman told GB News: "New houses should never house asylum seekers. Earlier this year, the Home Secretary introduced robust processes to ensure new-build sites like Stoke Heath can never be considered again."

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