Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has branded the daily recorded arrival of 416 migrants a “complete humiliation”, and that unless the Conservative government has the political will to pull out of the EU’s asylum regulations, the boats will keep coming.
The government revealed that a record-breaking 409 illegal aliens had crossed the English Channel in small boats and landed on British shores on Wednesday. Later, that figure was revised up to 416, taking the total since January 2020 to more than 5,600.
To understand the scale of the migrant crisis, by comparison, just 297 illegals arrived by boat in the whole of 2018.
Referencing the earlier-reported figure, Mr Farage asked Westmonster’s Michael Heaver on Thursday: “What is the collective noun for 409 migrants coming into Dover in one day? I’ll tell you what it is: it’s a humiliation. Complete humiliation.”
The Brexit Party leader continued: “We’ve had the Home Secretary talking tough, and we’ve seen pictures in the newspapers: ‘Oh! There’s a new RAF spotter plane! Woopie woo! Oh! Look at this drone!’
“It wouldn’t matter if you put what’s left of the Royal Navy in the Channel. If the rules are that once they’ve crossed the 12-mile line [into British territorial waters] that they’re entitled to a four-star hotel, three meals a day, free dental care, free health care, and forty quid a week cigarette money, then nothing’s going to change.”
In the summer, the politician-turned-investigative-journalist revealed that not only were migrants being put up in hotels for indefinite periods while British tourists were being turned away, but that the illegals were being treated to free VIP tours of Liverpool FC’s Anfield stadium.
“All, really, that [Home Secretary] Priti Patel does every time she speaks on this is to highlight the impotence of the British government. The criminal gangs are running rings around us, and we are being humiliated,” Mr Farage remarked.
On why he thinks the situation has gotten so much worse since 2018, the Brexit leader said it was because “virtually no one ever gets returned, now. That’s a big sell to the traffickers.”
According to the Daily Mail‘s reporting of government figures, while 80 per cent of asylum claims are rejected, just 185 of the approximate 2,000 fake refugees who should have been deported since October 2018 have actually been removed.
Mr Farage also said that traffickers were “using Brexit” to push sales of their illegal service, and claiming that once the United Kingdo leaves the EU’s transition period on January 1st, 2021, and is outside of the Dublin asylum regulations, the British will turn the boats back to France.
Last month, the Brexit Party leader said that during negotiations with Brussels, the British government must agree to pull out of the Dublin Regulations, “which allows people, effectively, to not claim asylum in France but to come to Britain”.
Farage said on Thursday that Britain should not wait until next year to pull out of Dublin, but “do it now”. He added that Boris Johnson needs to have the “political will” to get tough on illegal migration, in the same manner as Tony Abbott when as Prime Minister of Australia he enacted Operation Sovereign Borders, which turned back boat migrants.
Home Secretary Patel has reportedly been talking to Mr Abbott about how to stop the Channel crisis. But Farage wonders whether Prime Minister Johnson will back her, noting his liberal position on asylum from just a few short years ago.
“Even if she [Patel] takes this on board, will Boris Johnson the metro-liberal — will the man, who when he was mayor of London more than once advocated for complete amnesties for illegals — will he do a personal u-turn on this and start to understand that 97 per cent of Conservative voters are concerned or very concerned about this issue?” Farage asked.
Writing in The Telegraph on Thursday, Mr Farage said: “He needs to wake up to where Conservative voters are on this issue because, overwhelmingly, they want proper border controls and reduced numbers of immigration.”
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