The Labour Government has been scolded for “doing nothing” to stop the surging migrant crisis, as Jeff Banks declared the situation “appalling”.
Speaking to GB News, the former BBC presenter and businessman hit out at the sheer number of migrants crossing the Channel, as 700 more have entered Britain today.
As the migrant crisis continues to intensify, GB News exclusively revealed a clash between French police and a large group of migrants, as they attempted to launch a small boat from the river near Dunkirk.
As 700 more made the illegal crossing into Britain today alone, the latest total number of asylum seekers who have made the journey so far this year is now more than 41,000.
Delivering his verdict on the situation, Mr Banks told GB News: “I think all the promises that we’ve heard from Keir Starmer that he’s going to stop the boats, smash the gangs, he’s done absolutely nothing about it.
“And as you’ve seen on your programme, where you’ve actually gone into the camps and actually seen what’s going on there, it’s rife with guns, gangs operating with impunity.”
He added: “And the French, every now and then doing something about it, in spite of the £700million a year that we’re actually paying them.
“So I think it’s an appalling situation, and I don’t think we’ve done enough ourselves to protect our own border. There’s more to be done, it’s got to stop.”
Jeff Banks has despaired at the ‘appalling’ migrant crisis situation, as 700 asylum seekers cross into Britain
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GB NEWS / PA
Hailing GB News reporter Patrick Christys for his work exposing the migrant crisis on the French coastline, Mr Banks said: “I think your Patrick Christys has exposed everything on the two trips that he’s made.
“It’s been absolutely enthralling to watch when he’s really got under the bonnet and actually shown what’s going on there, and and if he can do it, why on earth are the authorities not doing it on behalf of our country and actually stopping it at source, rather than kind of helping them and ushering them when they actually get here?”
Weighing in on the discussion, leader of the Climate Party, Ed Gemmell, argued there is “one positive” to the clash between French police and the group of migrants.
He said: “Let’s look at a positive first, if there is a positive, that the French intervened and they actually did something, so actually we’re seeing some action happening in France.
Members of the gendarmerie fired tear gas and clashed with a large group of migrants | GB NEWS
“I think it’s disastrous to see numbers going up again, as soon as we get the good weather off they are again. We clearly haven’t solved the issue, even though there was a period in which we had a new no crossings for almost a month.”
Mr Gemmell added: “I think as a part of a more general trend, we’ve seen an increase in population in this country over the last 20 years, almost 10 million.
“And that’s almost entirely driven by immigration, not by small boats, obviously, a tiny proportion of it is, but that’s clearly an issue for us.”
Taking issue with Britain’s own border defence, the Climate Party leader despaired at the authorities for not “beefing up our own border”.
Mr Banks told GB News that Government is ‘doing nothing’ to tackle the crossings
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GB NEWS
He argued: “Jeff’s talked about what we’re paying the French, but we’re not beefing up our own border guard enough, are we?
“We’ve got something like less than 150 border guards who actually patrol the entire area around our coastline. It’s clearly completely ridiculous, and it needs redressing. Money needs to be put into that, that is clearly ridiculous.”
Suggesting that Britain needs to look to nations like Denmark in how they are tackling illegal migration, he concluded: “I think for me, it’s much more to look at the what’s going on in Denmark, and try to come up with a much more holistic plan of what to do at a lot of different levels to try and dissuade people from coming.
“And when they come, make sure that there’s very fixed rules in place. Everybody knows what’s happening and it will get sorted, and at the moment we don’t have that. We’ve got one or two little things that we’ve picked out the Denmark plan and we haven’t taken the whole thing. I think we should be doing more.”