Kemi Badenoch said she wanted to build ‘camps’ to house asylum seekers and the entirety of the internet responded as one
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has shared her latest vision for dealing with people coming to the UK to seek asylum.
She’s clearly been under pressure to come up with something, not just from Nigel Farage, obviously, but with her once (and future) Tory leadership rivals Robert Jenrick and Chris Philp constantly wanging on about it.
But there was something about the wording of Badenoch’s latest idea that struck people as at best unfortunate, and at worst downright appalling, a riff on the Nightingale Hospitals which were such a success (eh?) in the pandemic.
‘We need to build camps’.
Badenoch says the UK should build camps for asylum seekers like the Nightingale hospitals built during the pandemic.
‘There are examples of how we’ve done this before.’
She insists camps would keep both migrants and local communities safe. pic.twitter.com/RxUbeoDQVz
— ITVPolitics (@ITVNewsPolitics) August 12, 2025
And while it wasn’t exactly the entirety of the internet, it was quite a large proportion of it, who all responded like this.
1.
I’m extremely uncomfortable with politicians appearing on our TV screens calling for the building of camps.
She must realise the connotations of the terms she’s using. Surely?
— Don McGowan (@donmcgowan) August 12, 2025
2.
We fought a war against this. https://t.co/ZuykvaLkfs
— Iris Duane (@IrisDuane) August 12, 2025
3.
Oh like a camp where they can all be concentrated together
— Matt Zarb-Cousin (@mattzarb) August 12, 2025
4.
Literally the plot of Russel T Davies ‘Years And Years’ on Netflix. A drama about a not too far off Britain, written a few years ago. https://t.co/SSLVvakXgI
— India Willoughby (@IndiaWilloughby) August 12, 2025
5.
Years and Years (2019) https://t.co/s65iS2K4t0 pic.twitter.com/kfKeW4RHq4
— (@SianThymes) August 12, 2025
6.
Instead of camps for immigrants, why don’t we build camps for the rich?
Put them in, then keep them until they have paid all the taxes they should have done.
I’m sure many more people would support that. https://t.co/koBSdv9YAZ
— BladeoftheSun (@BladeoftheS) August 12, 2025