UK interior minister vows to stop migrant 'small boats'

Britain's new interior minister vowed to prevent migrants from claiming asylum if they arrive through an "illegal" route, and stop small boat crossings across the Channel from France.

Suella Braverman said the situation, in which criminal gangs were exploiting vulnerable migrants, had "gone on for far too long".

Irregular migration is a thorny political issue for the UK government, which promised to tighten borders after the country left the European Union.

But a partnership deal with Rwanda signed earlier this year under the premiership of Boris Johnson to send some migrants to the African country for resettlement has so far failed.

Braverman said Britain needed to "find a way to make the Rwanda scheme work" and denounced the intervention of the ECHR, describing it as a "closed process with an unnamed judge and without any representation by the UK".

"I will commit to look to bring forward legislation that the only route to the United Kingdom is through a safe and legal route," she told the ruling Conservative party's annual conference.

"If you deliberately enter the United Kingdom from a safe country you should be swiftly removed to your home country or relocated to Rwanda. That is where your asylum claim will be considered," she said.

Official government figures last month showed more migrants had crossed the Channel to the UK from northern France so far this year than in the whole of 2021, when 28,526 made the journey.

More than 33,500 people have now arrived in Britain.