𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

It is an image that will live with me for a long time. I recently visited Linton-on-Ouse with Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp, Conservative Party Chairman Kevin Hollinrake and local MP Alec Shelbrooke. And what I saw shocked me. Labour is imposing at least 1,200 migrant men on this small Yorkshire village. Men who have come here illegally and are from cultures that treat women and girls worse than animals, a fact proven by the Government’s belief that they needed a leaflet asking them to kindly not rape women or girls.

Which brings me back to the image. We walked with the Linton-On-Ouse action group. These aren’t racists or entitled middle-class people as ministers would have you believe. They’re ordinary Britons who care passionately about their community and the safety of women, girls and children. People who care about our country and our way of life – a happy, multi-racial village. As we turned a corner on my left, we passed a lovely residential neighbourhood – a scene replicated right across Britain.

On my right was the empty Ministry of Defence camp, soon to house 1,200 illegal migrants if Labour has its way. Then we walked a few more yards, and I’ll confess I stopped dead in my tracks. Right there was a children’s playground – literally right up against the site. Between them, a fence easily scaled. The children of this tiny Yorkshire village are already too terrified to go there, and the camp inhabitants haven’t even arrived yet.

It was an image that made me go cold. Children yards from more than a thousand migrant men, from places like Afghanistan and Eritrea, who have already broken the law by coming here. The site is also beside the local primary school where parents are already removing their children and the bus stop that takes teenage girls to a secondary school.

Home Office Minister Anna Turley caused further outrage when she disclosed her total ignorance of what the government is imposing on Linton-on-Ouse. “We are not housing them in the community,” she insisted. “They are being housed on a specific site that is self-contained and away from the community. All their needs are met on that site. Where they are not met, they are usually transported to larger places – cities or towns. That is certainly the situation at the two sites we have at the moment at Wethersfield and Crowborough.”

What on earth is she thinking? What is Labour thinking? This lacks any common sense. I’ve also been to Piddington in Oxfordshire twice. Once with Kemi Badenoch. And it’s a similar story. Their main playing field is right up against the broken fence line. Locals there are as fearful for their safety as the people of Linton-On-Ouse, Barnham and Crowborough. They have pleaded with Labour MPs to visit.

Yet the Government is simply not listening. They are deploying a hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil approach to these migrant camps. I have implored Bridget Phillipson, my opposite number, to recognise that illegal migrant men pose a direct threat to the safety of British women and girls. She won’t agree.

I’ve offered to work with her across the party and meet the women. She has refused. The women of Piddington wrote to every female MP and got no answer. When Kemi Badenoch, Chris Philp and I forced a debate and vote recently on the Piddington site, not a single female Labour MP attended.

The Lib Dems could not even be bothered to vote. To govern is to choose. Labour is choosing a path where they are placing women and girls directly in harm’s way. A few weeks ago, I shared in a Parliamentary debate the horrific stories of the rapes of girls as young as 12 by migrant men.

I promised, in taking this role as Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, that I would not shy away from saying the difficult truth when speaking up for women and girls. With these migrant camps, Labour has seriously lost its way. The implications are terrifying for these communities. They deserve to be heard. I am listening. Kemi Badenoch is listening. The Conservatives are listening. When we get back into Government we will act.

But for the moment it is for Andy Burnham, Shabana Mahmood and Bridget Phillipson to choose – illegal migrant men or British women and girls? I know which side I am on.

Joy Morrissey MP is Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and MP for Beaconsfield