BREAKING: UK migrant bombshell dropped by new Home Secretary - 'visas suspended'

Labour's new Home Secretary has warned the UK could suspend visas from countries that do not "play ball" and agree to returns deals for migrants.

Shabana Mahmood said she had discussed the measure with the UK's Five Eyes allies, with a crunch meeting held in London today. Ms Mahmood, who was appointed on Friday as Yvette Cooper moved to Foreign Secretary, said there was "interesting space for collaboration, particularly on how we deal with countries who do not take their citizens back".

She said: "For countries that do not play ball, we've been talking about how we can take much more co-ordinated action between the Five Eyes countries. For us, that means including possibly the cutting of visas in the future, just to say, you know, we do expect countries to play play ball, play by the rules, and if one of your citizens has no right to be in our country, you do need to take them back."

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Vowing to do "whatever it takes" to stop small boat crossings, she added: "This is a Labour Government with Labour policy and Labour proposals. We've been looking at this for some time. It's been discussed already across the Government and I'm very clear that there has to be a strong approach to maintaining our border, and that does mean saying to countries who do not take their citizens back that we're not simply going to allow our laws to remain unenforced."

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