Shabana Mahmood’s plans to reform Britain’s asylum system are “half-baked” and “all rhetoric”, Zia Yusuf has told GB News.

Speaking to Breakfast hosts Ellie Costello and Christopher Hope, Reform UK’s Head of Policy declared the plans will “not see the light of day” unless the Home Secretary “joins Reform”.

Unveiling her crackdown on Monday, Ms Mahmood told MPs that penalties would be brought in on countries that fail to comply with the return of illegal immigrants, and a new appeals system would be implemented.

The Home Secretary said: “What I am offering is a genuine set of proposals that can fix the broken system that we have and retain public consent for us having an asylum system at all.”

Delivering his verdict on the plans, Mr Yusuf told GB News: “All we have at the moment is rhetoric, and rhetoric does not change the laws.

“Rhetoric will not prevent judges from frustrating deportation of even foreign nationals who have committed the most heinous crimes, such as murder.”

Suggesting the Home Secretary should “join Reform” in order for her policy to succeed, he added: “So the answer is, because this is a Labour Home Secretary, I’m afraid it’s not going to see the light of day in terms of actually getting legislation passed.

“We haven’t yet seen a bill we’ve already had, I think 17 at the latest count, backbench Labour MPs publicly come out and condemn the proposals, and some of these MPs are openly calling their own Home Secretary racist.

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“So look, Nigel’s already somewhat tongue in cheek said, look, Shabana Mahmood, if she really wants to stop the boats and really believes in this stuff then put in an application to defect to Reform, and we’ll see what the team come up with.”

Comparing Ms Mahmood’s rhetoric to ex-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Mr Yusuf explained: “When I first saw this legislation, the first thing I said was Shabana Mahmood was doing a Rishi Sunak, and what I mean by that is people watching this programme will remember Rishi Sunak as being one of many senior politicians, ministers or indeed Prime Ministers in this case who set themselves a KPI, he was going to stop the boats.

“And what happened? The boats kept on coming. Under Labour, what’s happened is boats have continued to come.

“The number of illegal crossings has gone up north of 30 per cent since Labour came to power. The one in, one out programme is obviously an absolute shambles, it’s more like a game of the hokey cokey.

“So sadly, this is going to be yet again, lots of rhetoric from the Labour Party.”

Highlighting the “Trojan Horse” of Ms Mahmood’s plan, Reform’s Head of Policy told GB News: “There was also something of a Trojan Horse amongst all the fireworks and distraction in the use of the F-word in the House of Commons to grab headlines. What was also there is a new safe and legal routes program with an unspecified cap.

“So Labour also Trojan Horse-ing a new asylum program to bring even more people into the country, and they are unwilling to even put a cap on it. And I’m really worried actually, that this could lead to more immigration.”

Noting that Labour’s stronger rhetoric on migration is because of Reform, Mr Yusuf stated: “The only reason Shabana Mahmood has come out guns blazing in terms of rhetoric is because of the fact that Reform has made this such a big issue.

“We also saw this with indefinite leave to remain, there’s movement on that as well. The problem is these are all a half baked.

“Surely it should be the simplest thing in the world when you ask the Home Secretary how we should judge her plan to stop the boats, the only correct answer is ‘if the boats stop’, and she knows that is not going to happen.”

He concluded: “The reality is the vast majority of people in this country are sick and tired of being told that they cannot have a border, that Britain cannot have sovereignty, we still must allow our country to basically be invaded by unarmed men in small dinghies, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

“And that has nothing to do with racism or using racial slurs or anything like that, it is simply down to the rule of law and the complete unfairness of people watching this programme who are being asked to spend a significant percentage of their day to pay the state so that billions of pounds can go on putting people up in hotels who have no right to be in the country.

“Those are the fundamental reasons why this problem needed to be addressed years ago.”

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