Kevin Hollinrake: send migrants to Rwanda not Linton-on-Ouse

The Conservative Party Chairman has offered to work with Andy Burnham to deport asylum seekers to a “safe third country” instead of turning a North Yorkshire military base into a migrant camp.

The Home Office has applied for planning permission to house asylum seekers at former RAF Linton-on-Ouse near York, and two other Ministry of Defence sites.

It says this will help them close asylum hotels, however locals have reacted in uproar at the prospect of 1,300 men being housed in a small village of 650 people.

Tory Chairman Kevin Hollinrake, the MP for Thirsk and Malton, used to represent the village until boundary changes in the 2024 election.

He told Times Radio he would work with the new Prime Minister, Mr Burnham, for alternative solutions.

“We, in a previous government, decided where to put them, we said they should be detained and deported back to their home country, or if they couldn’t go to their home country they should go to Rwanda,” he said.

One of the Labour government’s first actions was to scrap the Rwanda scheme, as no asylum seekers were forcibly deported to East Africa after it became embroiled in legal challenges.

Mr Hollinrake continued: “Illegal migrants should not be in anybody’s community. That’s the reality.

“Whether it’s in hotels, houses of multiple occupation or air bases or military bases.

“I set about a campaign with others in the local community in a village near me in my constituency in the last Parliament, because I think it’s totally wrong they should be in these communities.”

In 2022, a Tory plan to house migrants at RAF Linton-on-Ouse collapsed after the project failed on technical grounds.

“These people coming across the Channel should be detained in detention centres pending their immediate deportation back to their home country or a safe third country,” Mr Hollinrake added.

“That’s what should happen - Andy Burnham could work with us tomorrow to do exactly that.”