Labour were first to suggest ‘hostile environment’ for immigrants, Emily Thornberry admits as she wades into Windrush row

LABOUR'S Emily Thornberry faced embarrassment today as she was forced to admit that it was HER party who first said they would create a "hostile environment" for illegal immigrants.

The Shadow Foreign Secretary said she knew that former Home Secretary Alan Johnson first used the phrase in a speech, but still insisted that Amber Rudd resign over the Windrush scandal.

This week it emerged that thousands of Commonwealth immigrants who came to Britain after World War II to work and contribute feared they could be deported because of not having the right paperwork.

Many who came over in the 1960s and 70s have lost their homes, been banned from coming back to Britain, and refused NHS treatment because they didn't have any records of their status.

Ms Thornberry told the Andrew Marr Show there was something "rotten at the heart of Government" by focusing on immigration targets and creating an unwelcome environment.

It came as Jeremy Corbyn himself accused Theresa May's policies of directly leading to the Windrush revelations.

He said today: "The Windrush scandal has exposed how British citizens who came to our country to rebuild it after the war have faced deportation because they couldn’t clear the deliberately unreachable bar set by Theresa May’s ‘hostile environment’ for migrants."

He said Tories were warned about the consequences for those not born in the UK years ago.

"People's lives ripped apart because of the personal decisions and actions of Theresa May and her Government," he added.

But BBC host Nick Robinson told Ms Thornberry that it wasn't the Tories who first used the phrase "hostile environment", it was Labour.

A UK Home Office report from February 2010 said: "This strategy sets out how we will continue our efforts to cut crime and make the UK a hostile environment for those that seek to break our laws or abuse our hospitality."

Ministers at the time were trying to prove they could be tough on immigration, but voters booted Labour out at the ballot box later in 2010.

Today Ms Thornberry admitted: "Alan Johnson first used it in a speech."

But she went on to argue that to "lift that phrasing, to embed it as much as it was, to strengthen it, to make it sharper and nastier, that was the difference".

"The words were used but the culture was not," she added.

Calling on the current Home Secretary to quit for the Windrush error she added: "How much worse can it be? People lost jobs, money, their futures."

The Labour frontbencher said her party didn't "have a problem with checks being made" but said the culture and atmosphere in the Home Office was "reckless" and "wrong".

And a shadow cabinet split emerged too when Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said Labour would "certainly repeal a fair amount of the system that now exists".

He told ITV's Peston on Sunday: "So the one thing this country stands up for is justice and human rights, that’s what we should always do and that should be embedded in all our legislation."

His colleague Dawn Butler went even further, accusing Theresa May of delivering "institutionalised racism".

She told Sky News the Prime Minister could be accused of being racist.

"I'm saying that Theresa May has presided over racist legislation that has discriminated against a whole generation of people from the Commonwealth," she said.

"Her policies, that she has implemented, have disproportionately affected people from the Commonwealth and people of colour.

"Therefore, if you look at what institutional racism is, that's what her policies are currently delivering."

Ms Butler called on the Prime Minister to "consider her position" and do more to repair the damage caused.

Last week the PM announced that Windrush victims who had lost out would get compensation for their traumatic ordeals.

She apologised to Caribbean leaders for the scandal and said no one would be deported while officials frantically double checked documents and got in contact with people who said they had been told to go.

But Albert Thompson, who had been denied NHS treatment, said he was still waiting to hear from officials.