Robert Jenrick, who quit the Conservatives for Reform this year, has urged Prime Minister Andy Burnham to "send the Royal Navy in to the Channel and shut down the entire asylum farce".
The Mirror's Voice of the Mirror column says there is "something deeply sickening" about a politician suggesting that threatening lives in the English Channel could solve a problem "in a matter of days". It says Jenrick has entered "grotesque territory" without hesitation and should "hang his head in shame" for words that reveal "a staggering contempt for human life".
From murals to deadly force
The column recalls that as Conservative immigration minister, Jenrick ordered Mickey Mouse and Tom and Jerry murals removed from an asylum centre to make it less welcoming to frightened children. It says he has now "graduated from stripping cartoon characters off walls to raising the prospect of deadly force against vulnerable civilians".
It adds that the Royal Marines "deserve far better than to be dragged into the Tory turncoat's poisonous political posturing", and that Britain deserves better than politicians who treat the possibility of human beings dying at sea as another opportunity to sound tough on immigration.
Moral boundary crossed
The column acknowledges that nobody disputes the need to secure borders, stop dangerous crossings and destroy criminal gangs exploiting desperate families. But it insists there must be a moral boundary that no decent politician would dream of crossing, and says Jenrick has "charged straight through it".
Lord Alf Dubs, who escaped Nazi persecution as a child, describes the remarks as "horrific", and the column says his condemnation should carry particular weight. It concludes that Jenrick's words betray Britain's proud tradition of offering sanctuary to people fleeing war, torture and persecution, and should leave "an indelible stain on his reputation".
