Gravesham MP Adam Holloway has caused outrage after complaining that asylum seekers stopped him getting a haircut.

The Tory minister told the House of Commons that Germany was “completely bonkers” to let increasing numbers of refugees into the country, at this afternoon's (September 8) crisis debate.

Mr Holloway controversially claimed that it was possible to be a refugee and an economic migrant.

Mr Holloway said: "In Calais today, many people there got out of an un-safe country, and now they have travelled through many safe countries since.

"What they are doing now is trying to get into their country of choice.

"It's quite possible to be a refugee and an economic migrant.

"And I think that's one of the appalling truths of the Syrian bodies that are being washed up on the beaches - they previously got to safe countries, and now are choosing to come to Europe.

"There are people in this country who have come here, claimed asylum and then they go back on holiday in the places where they have claimed asylum from.

"I couldn't have my hair cut the other day for that reason."

News Shopper: Interview with Adam Holloway MP

Mr Holloway added: "People across Britain wept when they saw that little boy's body on the beach.

"Good people scream out in empathy that we should be doing something to help these people, and we should assimilate more refugees to help the desperate.

"I completely agree with the need for action, the need to help those whose lives have been crushed by war with an enormous international effort - much more than we are doing now.

"But I also think the Prime Minister is completely right when he says receiving ever more people simply is not the answer.

"I believe much of the EU and the Germans are completely bonkers if they give ever growing numbers of refugees or migrants picked up in the Mediterranean the right to settle in Europe."

The MP also said that many of those fleeing to Europe were not truely refugees from Syria and other countries, but immigrants "looking for a better life".

Mr Holloway said: "Not all migrants are refugees.

"When populations free war or famine, they tend to flee together - with the children, with the elderly, the women as well as the men.

"The current migrants are overwhelmingly working age men, and they have paid a hefty price to make the trip.

"Most of the countries they come from are certainly poor, but not at war.

"It costs thousands to board a smuggler's boat."

 

 

 

 

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The MP, who lived undercover in a refugee camp in Calais and posed as a deaf and dumb Muslim in Bosnian-Surb teritory whilst working as a journalist, defended his rant.

He told News Shopper: “It should not be controversial at all.

“This message 'come to Europe and you’ll have a safe place to live' is wrong.

“To say people can come into the EU means they can come into the UK.

"Something needs to happen but we should be helping people in their own countries rather than allowing the privileged few asylum.

“I have known at least three individuals in my time, and not just in Gravesend, who have been granted asylum in the UK, come, been granted their work papers and gone back to their home countries almost straight away.”