‘Nobody is willing to enforce their borders!’ Ben Habib in FIERY clash with Jonathan Lis over migrant crisis

“So without borders, once you are in Italy, it is no problem at all to get to Calais. It is not about people smuggling gangs, it is about being able to travel freely around Europe.

“You get into a dinghy and then you are confronted by Border Force, which has all the power of a tea service with a Kit Kat, a warm blanket and then the promise of a four-star hotel when you get to shore. That is our border force.”

His response infuriated Lis, who responded: “Come on. People aren’t being put up at the Hilton, we can have a serious conversation about this where we talk about the facts, or we can have an inflammatory conversation where we just address stereotypes.”

He added: “I’m not a spokesman for the Labour Party. I think it’s important generally that when you announce a raft of new policies and you’ve just come into government and you’ve got a thousand things to do, that we do that successfully rather than rushing it.

“I don’t think we can complain about this. I think it’s a much more interesting thing to watch, and a much more interesting conversation to have, whether this command will actually work and whether this is actually the solution to the small boat crisis.

“I think if you take effective action against the gangs, that’s great. But that’s not going to solve the problem, because we know there will be people who try to come here.

“What I have been saying for months is that you need to have processing centres in France so that you can actually deal with people in France before they get on those unsafe boats, and in doing so overturn the criminal gang model. And you can also provide safe and legal means for people to come to Britain.”

Ben Habib later made his views on the Prime Minister known, saying: “People like the Labour Party, and particularly Keir Starmer, are fundamentally anti-British as far as I’m concerned.”