PRITI PATEL’S plans to criminalise asylum-seekers have been rejected by peers as the Ukraine crisis drives further opposition to her anti-refugee Bill. 

Lords dealt a series of blows to the government’s Nationality & Borders Bill on Monday night, putting the Home Secretary’s widely condemned asylum reforms at risk. 

Voting by 204 to 126, peers rejected clause 11 of the Bill, which sought to divide asylum-seekers into two classes based on their means of arrival to Britain and hand those entering via “illegal” routes jail sentences of up to four years. 

Speaking against the Bill, Labour peer Lord Dubs said the events in Afghanistan and Ukraine “give the lie to the idea that somehow you can get here by the sort of route that the Home Office approve of.”

Freedom from Torture chief executive Sonya Sceats hailed peers for showing powerful historic moral leadership by rejecting Clause 11. 

“At a time of international crisis, this incompetent government has once again found itself on the wrong side of history,” she said. 

Peers also voted to reject Clause 9 of the Bill, which would have granted Ms Patel powers to revoke a person’s British citizenship without notice. 

The government was also defeated by peers demanding that descendants of exiled Chagos Islanders are entitled to British citizenship.

Labour peer Lady Lister said the move aimed to tackle the injustice faced by descendants of Chagossians who were evicted by the British government from the archipelago in the late 1960s. 

The amendment would allow descendants of a person born before 1983 on the Chagos Islands to register as a British overseas territories citizen and as a British citizen: a right they would currently be entitled to had their relatives not been exiled.

Rosy Leveque of the BIOT Citizens group, which has been lobbying peers to support the amendment, said the Chagossian community has been shocked and overwhelmed by the level of cross-party support. 

“I really hope that the Conservative MPs in the Commons will do the right thing in granting [Chagossians in Mauritius and the Seychelles] British citizenship,” she told the Star. 

“All they want is to be with their families in the UK.”

The changes will return to the Commons, where the government could accept the amendments or challenge them. 

It comes amid growing criticism of the government’s response to the unfolding refugee crisis in Ukraine.

Today the government relaxed visa rules for Ukrainian refugees, expanding those eligible for family visas. Firms will also be able to sponsor a Ukrainian entering the country. 

Ms Patel said the “generous, expansive and unprecedented package” would allow Ukrainians to stay in the country for an initial period of 12 months. 

But campaigners criticised the scheme, saying it only helps those who already have family or connections to Britain.