Tony Blair today defended the Government's decision to carry on repatriating failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe, despite fears that they could face persecution if they are sent home.

The Prime Minister gave warning that allowing all claimants from Zimbabwe to remain in the UK would wreck the Government’s attempts to bring the asylum system under control.

He said at his monthly Downing Street press conference: "These claims from Zimbabwe are claims that have been processed and found to be false or wrong or unjustified. If we introduce a generalised moratorium in respect of Zimbabwe instead of assessing each case on a case-by-case basis, our real fear is that we will open up our system to the abuse we have been shutting down."

More than 15,000 Zimbabweans fled to Britain in the four years up to 2004, though only a few hundred have been granted asylum. In the first three months of this year, 95 Zimbabweans were forcibly removed.

The Home Office has said 116 Zimbabwean asylum seekers are in detention now awaiting possible deportation, 41 of whom have been on hunger strike last week at detention centres to protest against the lifting of a ban that prevented their deportation.

Mr Blair said Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, would be making a full statement on the issue later today.

Mr Blair added: "If we engage in a generalised moratorium, our fear is that we would literally be back in the situation we were two or three years ago where people were hammering us for not getting the asylum system under control.

"What we are trying to do is get the balance right between obviously protecting people from torture or abuse from what is an appalling [President Robert] Mugabe regime but not ending up in a situation where we just re-open all the problems we have had in our asylum system. This is a system which is incredibly sensitive to the signals that you send."

British policy on Zimbabwe, and the issue of asylum, has been put under the spotlight by Mr Mugabe's policy of clearing up shanty towns and street traders, a policy that has left hundreds of thousands of people homeless.

Earlier, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, denied reports of a rift on the issue with Mr Clarke and insisted that no-one was deported unless officials were convinced that it was safe for them to go back.

"Only where there is an overall Home Office and judicial judgment that it is safe for somebody to be returned have they been returned," he said. "And in no case where returns have taken place has any evidence been indicated of these people themselves suffering."

He denied reports at the weekend that the Foreign Office had sought to end the deportations. "There is absolutely no difference of view between the Foreign Office and the Home Office on this," he said. "Nor is there any difference of view between Charles Clarke the Home Secretary and myself as Foreign Secretary."

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