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Tony Blair’s government discussed opening asylum seeker camp on Isle of Mull

One Mull resident, who serves on the community council, says the proposals would be even less viable now than they were two decades ago.

Residents in Mull say the island desperately needs a new school.
Residents in Mull say the island desperately needs a new school.

Tony Blair’s government discussed sending asylum seekers arriving in Britain to a holding camp on the Isle of Mull, according to newly released official papers.

The plan, put forward by an aide to the prime minister in October 2002, was regarded as a “nuclear option” for tackling rising numbers arriving in the UK.

Under the drastic proposals, anyone who came to the country illegally would have been put straight back on a plane with little right to appeal.

Jonathan Powell, Mr Blair’s chief of staff, produced a paper which questioned whether the UK Government needed an asylum system at all.

He claimed Australia had been highly successful at tempting asylum seekers to go home by sending them all to one particular place.

Former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Westminster officials suggested the Isle of Mull, a popular tourist hotspot, as one of the possible destinations for people arriving from abroad.

Mark Aston, a local resident who serves on the community council, said the proposal would be even less viable now than it would have been two decades ago.

He told us: “There probably would have been mixed opinions. But the reality is that 2003 was a long time ago.

“It just wouldn’t be economically viable to consider anything like that on Mull at the moment.

‘So many obstacles’

He added: “Even if something like that was passed, the way planning approvals and local devolved politics work now, then I think there’d be so many obstacles to actually enacting planning permission, even if people supported it or not.”

Other locations considered included the Falkland Islands, 8,000 miles away in the South Atlantic.

However, Mr Powell admitted the proposals were unlikely to work due to the “Nimby” factor – a term used to describe residents opposed to more developments in their community.

The plan, which did not come to fruition, echoes Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s botched scheme to send asylum seekers arriving in the UK to Rwanda for processing.

Lee Anderson said asylum seekers should be sent to Orkney.

Last month, Tory MP Lee Anderson bizarrely claimed his party should look into using Orkney as an alternative destination.

The Conservative deputy chairman was branded “insensitive and thoughts” for the idea.

He told GB News at the time: “If we can find an island in the Orkneys, or one of these islands up there, that’s got no people on there, put some decent accommodation on, it’s job done.”

First Minister Humza Yousaf. Image: PA.

First Minister Humza Yousaf claimed the proposals could be seen as insulting to residents on the Isle of Mull.

He said: “It’s very disparaging to Scotland – and to those on the Isle of Mull or elsewhere – to suggest that, ‘well, let’s just fling people in the far reaches of the country and forget about them, and leave them there’.”

He added: “It is disappointing that both Labour and the Conservatives, as these files have shown, have engaged in a race to the bottom when it comes to the issue of immigration.”

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