Shadow home sec accuses govt of a 'dereliction of duty' | Middle East war

Well, I'm joined now by the shadow home secretary, Chris Phelp. [snorts] Um, good morning. Um, your former defense secretary, Ben Wallace, said that the government had been caught with its pants down uh in Iran cuz it had cut back on defense spending. But, um, warships don't get magicked out of nowhere suddenly. Uh, the cuts happened on your watch. You, the Tories, sold the pants and the belt and the braces long before Labour turned up. So, shouldn't Wallace have been aiming his fire at your predecessors? >> Good morning, Trevor. Well, look, I think the fact is we do have warships that are capable of defending Cyprus and defending Gulf States. Ships like HMS Dragon and the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales um equipped with advanced F-35Bs, which the last Conservative government um purchased and commissioned. The problem is the problem is those ships as we speak are nowhere near Cyprus. They're nowhere near the Gulf. They're tied up at the docks in Portsmouth um because uh Karma and Labour government showed no foresight whatsoever and even they knew even though they knew three or four weeks ago that America planned this action against Iran, they did not move those ships into the region. That is a dereliction of duty frankly and it's left Cyprus undefended and it's left it's meant that we the UK have made essentially a very limited or no contribution towards defending those Gulf states which undermines our credibility in the region. They could have moved those ships 3 weeks ago, but they didn't. >> I don't normally hurl 14 years at you, but come on. Look, you were you guys were in for 14 years, which is a sort of period where you prepare for this kind of thing. And the truth of the matter is that as uh I talked to foreign secretary about it this morning that the real problem here is that we just don't have enough assets. Two weeks ago, you would have been saying to me, we need to have ships in the high north because the Russians are coming across the Arctic. But today you also want them in the Mediterranean and in the Gulf. You can't have both because over 14 years you reduced the stock of uh military assets so dramatically. We have to make a choice. >> Well, hang on. These ships are currently not in the high north. They're not in the Gulf. They're they're in Portsmouth. And they're getting prepared for a mission. >> And K Star could have made a decision about three weeks ago when he became aware that America was planning this action. He could have decided, Karma could have decided to move those ships to the Mediterranean and the Gulf, but he didn't do that and that is a dereliction of duty. Now, we do need to increase our defense expenditure. That is certainly true. And we conservatives have said we need to get to 3% of GDP extremely quickly. Labor don't have a timetable for that. Let me finish the point. We've also said that we should we should immediately reinstate the two child benefit cap, which would save three and a half billion and spend that money on our armed forces. Just last week in parliament, Labour voted to get rid of that benefit cap. Pay people with three, four, five, 10 children unlimited amounts of money. We should not be spending money on that. We should be spending the three and a half billion on our armed services. And that is a different choice that we would make. >> You could you could do your party a service by simply saying right now, sorry, we didn't do all this when we had the chance. >> Well, look, in government, we did equip the aircraft carriers with the F-35Bs. We did renew the things that you're saying need to get done now. Well, look, the world I think is arguably a lot more dangerous now than it was even 5 or 10 years ago. Um, with, you know, >> raise it to 3% 10 years ago. >> In the last in the last 10 years, and the world or 15 years, the world has got considerably more dangerous. You've got the Russian invasion of Ukraine. You've got China being a lot more assertive and um looking over at Taiwan. You've got the situation in the Middle East now. Uh, you know, the world is more dangerous now than it was before. We did invest in the aircraft carriers and in the F-35s, for example. We also we also renewed our nuclear deterrent in in government but we need to do more. We need to do more. >> All right. But just quickly on on Iran uh your leader says that um you should take more assertive action. Does assert more assertive action mean that RAF planes should join uh should fly sorties join bombing raids on Iran? Uh yes it does because Iranian military uh installations are being used to launch missiles um at British targets and at targets in other countries around the Gulf like the UAE um and uh Aman and others and we should be actively seeking to destroy the military installations on Iranian soil that are launching uh those missiles and and it's a dereliction of duty again it's because Kisam is so weak that he won't authorize that kind of action. This week I talked to the home secretary about a plan to reduce immigration. I heard your leader say you'd go further. How would you go further than throwing children in the back of vans and removing uh indefinite leave to remain from lots of people and so on. What would you do that is more draconian? >> Well, let's let's start with illegal immigration across the channel. Um we would go a lot further than the Labor government and we would say we would come out of the ECR. We'd come out of the modern slavery treaty and that would enable us to deport anyone crossing the channel illegally within a week either back to their country. >> How did that stop them coming across? >> Well, let me just explain. >> They went back. This government sent some of them back and they came turned >> Well, no, not not deport them to France. Deport them back to their country of origin if that's possible or to a safe third country like Rwanda if not. Now, if you're an illegal immigrant in France and you know if you cross the channel, you're going to wind up back in your country of origin or somewhere like Rwanda, you are frankly not going to bother attempting the crossing in the first place. Australia did something similar and that worked and Australia and Australia did >> say that. But there's absolutely no evidence that that's true. In fact, the numbers have risen. As much as you have said this, as much as this government has said this, where is the evidence that anybody sitting in Calala wanting to get on a boat is hearing Chris Phelps saying, "Oh, if you turn up, we're going to send you back and believes it." >> If we if we did it in practice, right, then within two or three months, people would simply stop crossing. And I'm not making that up because Australia did exactly what I'm describing. I spoke to the former Australian prime minister who said that in September 2013, they started doing what I'm describing. And they took people coming to Australia. They put them on an island >> and and within about 3 months within about 3 months the crossings stopped. >> They put them on an island on the middle of the Pacific, which we can't do. But anyway, >> but we can return people to their country of origin or or to a safe third country like Rwanda. And within a few months of of of that happening in [clears throat] practice, not just me saying it, but it happening in practice, people would stop attempting the crossing. And by the way, coming out of the ECR would also allow us to deport all foreign criminals, not just some. and it would enable us to deport people with no right to be here. All of that is a lot tougher than what Shabbana Mahmud said because she won't come out of DCR and that mean the truth is the legal system means she therefore can't deport foreign criminals and she can't deport all illegal immigrants. >> Crystal, thanks for your time this morning. Thank you.

Sky's Trevor Phillips repeatedly pushes the shadow home secretary on whether the Conservative governments between 2010 and 2024 should take responsibility for the cuts to the British armed forces. But Chris Philp criticises Sir Keir Starmer and Labour, saying the current prime minister's failure to deploy warships to the Middle East sooner is a "dereliction of duty". Defending cuts to the armed forces - he says, "the world I think is arguably a lot more dangerous now than it was even five or 10 years ago". Live updates: https://news.sky.com/story/politics-latest-mandelson-starmer-labour-farage-badenoch-12593360 #skynews #uknews #politics #iran #middleeast SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel for more videos: http://www.youtube.com/skynews Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/skynews Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skynews Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skynews Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@skynews For more content go to http://news.sky.com and download our apps: Apple https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/sky-news/id316391924?mt=8 Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bskyb.skynews.android&hl=en_GB Sky News Daily podcast is available for free here: https://podfollow.com/skynewsdaily/ To enquire about licensing Sky News content, you can find more information here: https://news.sky.com/info/library-sales