UK's farmland being sacrificed to house 'illegal' migrants, caller fumes

15 June 2022, 16:32

By Seán Hickey

Shelagh Fogarty couldn't believe her ears when this caller suggested that 'illegal migrants' are a primary threat to Britain's food supply.

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Home Secretary Priti Patel has declared she is "disappointed" by the cancellation of the inaugural deportation flight to Rwanda.

The European Court of Human Rights withheld the government's decision to send asylum seekers to the African country, which the UK currently accepts refugees from.

Michael in Swindon phoned Shelagh Fogarty to share why he thought the flight should be going ahead.

"The country is full", the caller said, arguing that "illegal" asylum seekers are filling up hotels up and down the country, and houses are taking up the UK's agricultural land to house these people.

"Where I live in Swindon, all the countryside is being taken up with housing estates, soon there'll be no farmland left and we won't be able to produce our own food."

Shelagh struggled to process the caller's argument.

"The reality Michael is, a tiny, tiny proportion of this country is built up" she argued, to which he replied "only a tiny proportion is fit for agriculture."

"Farmland has got to rely on good weather" he went on, making the case that the weather in Scotland and Wales hampers the UK's ability to expand its agricultural output.

"Have you ever been on holiday in Wales?"

He went on to dismiss arguments that the UK takes less asylum seekers than its EU counterparts: "France is 2.5 times bigger than England,... and when they process them, they shoot them back out of the country."

The caller concluded that the UK needs to sort out Brexit before welcoming migrants en masse, telling Shelagh "the EU are making it very hard" for the UK to prosper.