CAMPAIGNERS and MPs have hit out at Rishi Sunak’s plans to make asylum claims for those who travel on small boats inadmissible, calling it “inhumane” and a distraction from government failures.

The Prime Minister is expected to set out his government plans tomorrow which will also see migrants removed to a third country such as Rwanda and banned from returning or claiming citizenship.

Mr Sunak previously said that “stopping the boats” is one of his five key priorities.

A record 45,756 people crossed the Channel last year, up 60 per cent from 2021.

And more than 2,500 people have arrived in Britain the same way this year so far.

The government has made its hard-line approach on immigration known, with Home Secretary Suella Braverman last year describing the number of arrivals on the south coast as an “invasion” and that it was her “obsession” to see a deportation flight to Rwanda.

Cabinet minister Michelle Donelan said: “This week we will be bringing forward additional legislation, which is based on the principle that if people travel here via illegal routes they shouldn’t be allowed to stay, which I think is common sense and right and the correct approach.”

But the new legislation is expected to face significant legal challenges amid concerns that it is in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Migrant Voice UK director Nazek Ramadan said that the plan would not just strip people of their right to seek safety in Britain but would also punish them for doing so.

She said: “This is cruel, inhumane and illegal under international law.

“Instead of using people seeking safety as scapegoats for political gain, the government should come up with workable, fair and humane policies and safe routes for all who need protection.”

The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants said that if the government had compassion and sense, it would introduce safe routes, the right to work and allow people to settle in Britain’s communities.

“Instead they ramp up cruelty towards, and demonisation of, people seeking safety here whenever it’s politically convenient to,” it said in a statement.

“We have to call out government’s deplorable divide-and-rule politics for what they are.”

The group said it was no coincidence that the announcement comes as the government is “rightly feeling the heat” over Covid care home deaths, NHS waiting times and the cost-of-living crisis.

Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon said the plans are “flawed” and would result in tens of thousands locked up in detention at huge costs.

Freedom from Torture chief executive Sonya Sceats said it would not reduce the number of deaths in the Channel or the “chaos and incompetence that blights our asylum system.”

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer suggested the move was a political tactic ahead of May’s local elections and questioned its legality.

Former home secretary Diane Abbott said that the PM “must know that policy will not work.”

The Labour MP tweeted: “It is simply a disgraceful ‘core vote’ strategy — because he has nothing else to fight the next general election with.”

Her colleague Bell Ribeiro-Addy said: “Criminalising and punishing people for fleeing war and persecution isn’t the answer. Expanded safe routes are.

“But as living standards plunge and public services fall apart, the Tories are desperately stepping up their attack on refugees and asylum-seekers.”

Green MP Caroline Lucas said that the plan shows that the government is “incompetent as well as inhumane.”

She said: “Its Orwellian proposal to send asylum-seekers back if they don’t use safe and legal routes — that don’t exist — is grotesque and unworkable.

“Performative politics at its worst.”