Labour Party deputy leader Lucy Powell said earlier that the government had “significantly reduced” the number of people arriving on small boat crossings after “a huge amount of work”.
“If we had a switch that we could switch tomorrow to stop all small boats we would switch it,” she told Radio Kent.
She said the government was taking steps to reduce the number of people arriving on small boats, including providing extra resources and new legislation.
“I know that people want this to happen faster,” Powell told the . “We are taking those steps, it is working.”
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: “Keir Starmer’s pledge to ‘smash the gangs’ was always a farce and open-borders Burnham has learnt absolutely nothing from his predecessor.
“The only way to stop the crossings is to deport all illegal immigrants on arrival, and only the Conservatives have a plan to do that.”
Liberal Democrats home affairs spokesman Max Wilkinson said the government should “tackle the root cause by entering the EU’s landmark migration and asylum pact”.
Until they did so, he said, people smugglers would “continue to find a way through, lives will be put at risk and taxpayers’ money will be wasted”.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said his party would “deploy the Royal Navy and stop the boats”.
Additional reporting by PA Media
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