Piers Morgan scorns an angry Ann Widdecombe live on GMB after immigration comment

Piers Morgan blasted former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe on this morning’s Good Morning Britain, when she appeared on the show to talk about Amber Rudd’s resignation over the windrush scandal.

Things got a little heated when the discussion was, according to Ann, 70, misinterpreted when she was verbally attacked for her stance on the Rudd situation and in regards to immigration.

‘All I’m saying is that in an endeavour to put that right – which we must do and there isn’t any argument about that – in an endeavour to put this right, don’t lose sight of the fact that successive home secretaries of both parties have been trying to tackle a situation where we have a lot of illegal immigration in this country,’ Ann said.

She continued to say: ‘We don’t practice much detention, we don’t have national identity cards, they’re very difficult to track and I’ll tell you the real problem with targets,’ as in-studio guest Trevor Phillips and presenters Morgan and Susanna Reid listened.’

‘The big one that I always point out, which is that if you set a target then what you do is encourage officials to go after the easy, the soft cases because then you can pile up the statistics while the people that come in off the backs of lorries, claim asylum and then promptly disappear. They’re the ones that get away with it.’

But Phillips was less than impressed that she mentioned illegal immigration and was visibly annoyed at her seemingly linking the two. ‘It’s very disappointing to hear an independent, former member of Parliament peddling the Home Office line – these people are not immigrants, illegal or otherwise, they are Brits,” he responded.

“The only reason we are tying these two things together, let me be frank here, is because they are brown. These are British people who are victims of a monstrous injustice. They have nothing to do with illegal immigration!”

Piers, 53, then butted in, having sided with Phillips, and proceeded to blast Ann: ‘You’re rolling your eyes but Trevor Phillips is right,’ he scorned the recent Celebrity Big Brother housemate. ‘These people were never immigrants, they are British citizens.’

Ann hit back, in an attempt to explain herself, getting very angry in the process: ‘You are wrong! I said very clearly just now that we have to give them justice. I was agreeing with Trevor, not disagreeing, when he was pointing out that they were not illegal immigrants,” she clarified.

‘You misinterpreted that, Piers. They’re not illegal immigrants.

‘What I meant by “soft targets” was, you go for people where you know where they are, where they may not have the documentation which would prove that they are fully entitled to be there. I wan’t calling them illegal immigrants!’

Amber Rudd resigned from her position as Home Secretary last night, after she was heavily criticised over her response to and handling of the windrush scandal that’s seen British citizens suffer deportation and Rudd exposed to, despite saying she had no deportation agenda, reduce illegal immigration by 10%, after the Guardian published a letter where she set out to do just that.

Catch GMB each morning, from 6am, on ITV1.

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