The Labour Party has said it would have “no choice” but to continue housing asylum seekers on barges and ex-military bases if it forms the next government.

Shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock said Labour would “inherit a mess” if it wins the next election and that it would have to “deal with the infrastructure that we have”.

Speaking to Sky News, Mr Kinnock said Labour would try to move asylum seekers out of hotel, barges and military camps as “quickly as possible” but added: “The reality is, on day one of a Labour government, we have to deal with the infrastructure that we have in the complete, chaotic, shambolic mess that the Conservative government will have left us.”

Pressed again on whether that meant Labour would still use barges, he said: “We will be left with no choice but to deal with the mess that we inherit.”

The admission comes as the two parties trade blows over the small boat crisis in the Channel and as the first asylum seekers prepare to arrive on the controversial Bibby Stockholm barge in Dorset next week, following a series of delays.

The government has ramped up its attacks on Labour over the small boats crisis, with Home Secretary Suella Braveman accusing the party of trying to “sabotage” its plan to stop the boats with its links to charities and lawyers who oppose the scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda – a policy that is currently held up in the courts.

She told the Sunday Express that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was “secretly delighted at his web of cronies’ schemes to block our plans to stop the boats”.

Bibby Stockholm: First asylum seekers expected to arrive on barge on Monday, Sky News understands

Bibby Stockholm: Health and safety worker checks delaying barge taking asylum seekers

Asylum seekers set to move on to Bibby Stockholm barge ‘next week’ after delays

“He’s in this for political point scoring and doesn’t care about what’s good for the country or the British people,” she said.

Writing in the Sun on Sunday, immigration minister Robert Jenrick also accused Labour of using “every trick and tactic to delay and prevent us from removing people with no right to remain in the UK”.

“And as they do so, they put two fingers up to the law-abiding majority who suffer from illegal migration,” he said.

In response, Labour has claimed that the Conservatives have been unable to remove failed asylum seekers from the UK and that it would take until 2036 just to clear the existing backlog.

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