Sir Keir Starmer has weighed in on the chicken nuggets row (Image: GETTY)
has backed the Home Office’s bid to deport an Albanian criminal who was allowed to stay in Britain partly because his son refuses to eat foreign chicken nuggets.
The Prime Minister’s spokesman said he “absolutely supports” Home Secretary ’s appeal against an immigration tribunal which ruled that deporting the 10-year-old boy’s father would be “unduly harsh” given to the child’s sensitivity to food.
The tribunal was told the boy dislikes “the type of chicken nuggets that are available abroad,” prompting an upper court to overturn the verdict and order a review.
The report prompted furious condemnation from among others Reform UK leader , who said it “made him want to cry”.
Speaking on Monday, the spokesman said: “I think the upper tier tribunal has already sent this case back to be considered again. It’s hard to comment on specific cases beyond that.
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Nigel Farage said the story made him ‘want to cry’ (Image: Getty)
“But the Home Secretary rightly appealed this case through the courts, and the PM absolutely supports that process.”
The case, which was outlined in court documents, is among a record 34,169 outstanding asylum appeals – a five-fold rise in two years.
The backlog of appeals and asylum claims, inherited from the , is down 2.4 per cent but remains at 131,339.
Albanian Klevis Disha, 39, entered the UK illegally, lied about his nationality, and gained citizenship after being granted indefinite leave to remain, as reported in the .
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Dame Angela Eagle said she was ‘fairly astonished’ (Image: Getty)
He was jailed for two years after being caught with £250,000 in criminal proceeds and is now facing deportation.
A lower court ruled it would be “unduly harsh” for his son – identified only as C – to be separated from him or forced to move to Albania.
The case hinged on the child’s “additional needs”, which included educational support and “sensory difficulties” with certain foods that caused him to shut down.
Speaking on LBC, border security minister Dame Angela Eagle said she was “fairly astonished” by the case.
She added: “We certainly hope we can get deportation action going, but that will be for the courts to decide.”
She pointed out that the Government had deported nearly 19,000 foreign criminals and migrants with no right to remain since July.
Ms Eagle added: “We’ve deported a lot of people, regardless of whether they like chicken nuggets or not.”