Government offshore asylum idea attacked as 'morally bankrupt'

Rights groups and charities unite to oppose sending refugees to remote islands

Humanitarian groups and charities have reacted with fury to revelations that No 10 officials explored sending asylum seekers to offshore detention centres in Moldova, Morocco and south Atlantic islands, branding the move morally bankrupt".

A source close to the Home Office told the Guardian that the prime minister's chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, had become obsessed with the Channel crossings" in the weeks before documents on the implications of the idea were produced in mid-September.