Council tax in Kent is set to increase by around £7 million as a result of the flood of utterly bogus child asylum seekers dumped in there, new figures have revealed.

The shortfall was revealed after an announcement that government funding for unaccompanied child ‘asylum seekers’ was going to be cut — inadvertently highlighting the costs of this swindle.

Kent County Council (KCC) called for urgent talks with the Home Office after it was told by the local authority that it would “no longer qualify for some elements of grants paid to councils to look after unaccompanied asylum seekers.”

The council says it has a funding gap of £3.5 million, partly because the Government no longer meets the costs of looking after young ‘asylum seekers’ when they reach the age of 18.

The Tory-controlled KCC has already announced that any failure by the central government to reimburse the costs could push up Council Tax bills.

KCC is responsible for about 1,000 unaccompanied minors and even where they have lost appeals to stay in the UK, social services remains responsible for them until they either reach the age of 21 or are deported.

KCC said the Government gave it no warning it was amending the rules, which meant an element to cover costs of looking after ‘asylum seekers’ in centres would no longer be paid.

Of the 1,000-plus unaccompanied minors in Kent, about a third are waiting for the outcome of appeals while a further third have already been through the process but had yet to be deported.

While they remain in the UK, KCC bears the costs of their welfare support.

This is the cost of ‘child asylum seekers’ in just one county. Given that there are 86 historical counties in Britain (and a few more urban authorities) the total cost of ‘child asylum seekers’ across Britain might be as high as £602 million. This excludes, of course, the cost of ‘adult asylum seekers’.

The British National Party’s policy on asylum seekers adheres to international law which states that people fearing persecution have the right to asylum in the first safe country bordering the one they are fleeing.

People do not have the right to ‘flee’ across 20 safe countries just to get to Britain. There are, therefore, no legal Third World asylum seekers in this country.