After more than a year since winning the General Election, Labour has shifted the blame over its failure to stop the small boats crossing the English Channel.
More than 25,000 people have crossed over to the UK this year – that’s roughly one person for every 12 minutes.
It marks the fastest pace of arrivals since records began in 2018.
Crime and Policing Minister Diana Johnson told the Today Programme that the Labour Government have “measures in place to stop people from entering this country”.
“We have a plan on how to tackle (the numbers of people coming in),” Johnson said.
“It’s early days.”
The presenter quickly interjected, saying: “It’s not working though is it”.
It prompted Johnson to again repeat: “It’s early days”.
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Diana Johnson
“We’ve got for the first time ever since we left the EU … an agreement with the French,” Johnson said.
“Returning people who are arriving in this country … that’s very positive.”
The Policing Minister references Keir Starmer’s one-in-one-out pilot scheme he signed with French President Emmanuel Macron last month.
However, while it is expected to come into play in the coming weeks, roughly 50 people will be returned per week.
Johnson claimed it was “very positive” and the French were “now looking at some of the tactics that they can employ in northern France.”
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Hundreds of people arrived in the UK on Wednesday
“This issue that they won’t engage or intervene wen a person is in a small boat … (we) know that the French are looking at that,” she added.
Johnson praised Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Starmer for “building up the relationship with the French in the last 12 months” which had been neglected by previous governments.
“We need time, the smugglers, the gangs that are involved in the small boats have had six years to develop their business model,” she said.
“What we’re doing now is going after those gangs, we’re putting in place measures with the French and with the Germans as well.”
Johnson felt the Germans had also jumped on board with the UK.
“What we’re doing now is going after those gangs, we’re putting in place measures with the French and with the Germans as well,” she said.
“The Germans have agreed recently to allow the raiding of warehouses where small boats are being stored by these criminal gangs.”
She said: “This has to be part of a number of measures in order to tackle what’s happening with the small boats.”
However, figures released on Thursday has shown nearly 900 refugees and migrants made the perilous trip across the Chanel in 13 small boats a day earlier.
It brings the total to 25,346 people who had made the dangerous journey from France to the UK.
