Lord Blunkett: Starmer failed to offer 'comprehensive answer' on small boats crisis
Sir Keir Starmer has failed to offer a “comprehensive answer or an understandable narrative” on tackling the small boats crisis, former Labour home secretary Lord Blunkett has said.
The Prime Minister and his government have set out measures to speed up the asylum appeals system to aid the removal of people with no right to be in the UK.
However, Sir Keir is facing mounting pressure after protests continued outside asylum hotels and a poll suggested voters thought he was failing to get a grip on the problem.
Lord Blunkett, who was also MP for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough, said: “I think that the individual measures the government has taken are extremely helpful in their own right but don't add up either to a comprehensive answer or an understandable narrative.
"At the moment the issue is so toxic and beginning to get out of the government's grip to the point it is very hard to bring it back.”
So far this year a record 28,288 people have crossed the English Channel in small boats after 212 people did so on Sunday in four boats, making the total 46 per cent more than by the same date in 2024.
Protests at sites housing asylum seekers continued over the weekend and the Government is braced for further legal fights over the use of hotels.
Lord Blunkett, who has suggested temporarily suspending elements of the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Refugee Convention to deal with the problem, said Sir Keir had to be “radical” in his approach.
A YouGov poll for The Times found that 71 per cent per cent of voters believe the Prime Minister is handling the asylum hotel issue badly, including 56 per cent of Labour supporters.
The survey of 2,153 people carried out on August 20-21 found 37 per cent of voters viewed immigration and asylum as the most important issue facing the country, ahead of 25 per cent who said the economy and 7 per cent who said the health service.
Lord Blunkett told the newspaper: “A further package of actions is absolutely vital to start controlling both the public narrative and the delivery.”
Official figures released earlier this month showed a total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the UK in the year to June 2025, the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001.
The record level of applications comes as the backlog of people waiting for an initial decision on their claims dropped to 90,812 at the end of June.
There were 32,059 asylum seekers in UK hotels by the end of the same month. Labour has promised to end the use of the sites by 2029.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said “completely unacceptable” delays in the appeals process left failed asylum seekers in the system for years.
The Government has put forward plans for a new system where a panel of independent adjudicators, rather than tribunal judges, deals with appeals over asylum decisions.
There are about 51,000 asylum appeals waiting to be heard, taking on average more than a year to reach a decision, with the backlog now thought to be the biggest cause of pressure in the asylum accommodation system.
The Home Secretary said the overhaul would result in a system which is “swift, fair and independent, with high standards in place”.
Border security minister Dame Angela Eagle said Labour was “clearing up the mess of the previous government”.