A CONSERVATIVE candidate and former MP has said he finds the way asylum seekers have been treated in the UK is ‘abhorrent’.

Tobias Ellwood said that he finds some of the policies put forward by members of the party to deal with asylum seekers as ‘embarrassing’.

At a hustings event in Boscombe on Wednesday, June 19, candidates were asked if they think the policy to send asylum seekers to the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland is humane.

Mr Ellwood said: “There was a Conservative MP not long ago that went across to the United States to New Mexico and had a selfie taken next to Trump’s wall.

“And he said let's have some of this in the UK.

Candidates at the hustings (Image: Newsquest)

“That is the tensions that I find myself within my own party. And worrying about a supermajority, there's a real worry that the right wing of my party will want to merge with Nigel Farage and create something quite crazy.

“I find this whole issue, what we're doing with asylum seekers cringing. I really do.

“So, it's abhorrent the way they've been treated.”

Mr Ellwood highlighted the failings of the system to process asylum seekers, and said: “There's a bigger issue here and it's been embarrassing some of the policies, some of the proposals have been put forward by my own party.”

Tom Hayes, the Labour candidate for Bournemouth East, responded to the question by simply saying ‘no’, adding: “It's wrong.

“It creates a different category of people to say that people who need the support and compassion of this country should somehow go onto that chip and for it to be in the most inhumane conditions.”

He said: “People who are fleeing abuse, famine, war, drought, some of the worst experiences that people will know should be treated with decency, not subjected to something far, far worse.”

Mr Hayes also pointed out that Mr Ellwood could have stood as an independent if he did not agree with the Conservative policy, adding: “You chose to stand as a Conservative candidate, I am really sorry but you do get held accountable for a Conservative government.”

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Green Party candidate Joe Salmon highlighted the delays in processing asylum claims.

“These people, they deserve to have their asylum applications processed in good time,” he said.

“Not only is it inhumane, it is cruel, it is a moral stain on our conscience what goes on, on these barges.”

Mr Salmon added: “It is a disgusting state of affairs, the state the things on the Bibby Stockholm, or even treat asylum seekers, all kinds of people in this country.”

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Liberal Democrat candidate for Bournemouth West, Jeff Hanna, agreed, saying that it is taking too long to process claims. “We need to invest more in officers who can process those,” Mr Hanna said.

“We can get access to asylum seekers much more quickly and enable those asylum seekers to do what asylum seekers have been doing for decades when they have come to Britain, enabling them to become productive, committed citizens of this country who benefit us, who contribute to us, and who give us the wealth of their experience as part of what this country is all about.”

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A full list of the Bournemouth East and Bournemouth West constituency candidates can be found on the Bournemouth Echo website.