Cross-Channel migrants cannot expect red carpet treatment when they step off their inflatables on to British soil.
But they have every right under international law to ask the UK for asylum, and should be treated with humanity and compassion when they do.
We should be ashamed as a nation that we fell so far short of that at Manston as footage today shows the truly squalid conditions there.
Migration is a global issue which needs international cooperation to solve.
There are 100million people on the move worldwide; 11million of them fleeing Ukraine.
That means Home Secretary Suella Braverman cannot simply ship the problem offshore.
Rwanda is no solution.
If the scheme ever gets off the ground, which is doubtful, it would set the taxpayer back £600,000 for each asylum seeker we send.
That’s more than keeping them in hotels for 12 years.
Nor is packing them back to France an option. France was not the first country migrants from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan or Syria passed through.
They are no more France’s responsibility than ours.
We must end what draws migrants to Calais – and the tantalising prospect of the white cliffs of Dover they see from there.
That means changing the rules which insist that migrants must be in Britain before they can claim asylum.
If they were processed abroad, say by the UN High Commission for Refugees in camps equipped for purpose, the successful would have safe routes to get here, and those refused admission would go elsewhere.
The Home Office has too much on its plate with police, national security and safeguarding. Immigration should be hived off and turned into its own government department.
There are answers out there, Suella, if only you would look.
Fix the NHS
Doctors and nurses are at the end of their tether. As Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting reveals today, 20,000 doctors and 40,000 nurses have quit the NHS.
And the result of the Royal College of Nursing strike ballot this week could well see the 300,000 workforce downing their thermometers and bedpans.
The NHS is now on life support because of 12 years of Tory neglect.
Labour has a funding plan to fix it.
Mr Streeting would end non-dom status once enjoyed by Rishi Sunak’s wife so everyone who lives in Britain pays their fair share.
Because we need doctors and nurses more than the rich need their tax loopholes.
