Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick has claimed that if he was prime minister he would be able to end small boat crossings “in weeks”.
Speaking ahead of Saturday’s result, which will see either Jenrick or Kemi Badenoch replace Rishi Sunak as leader of the Conservative Party, the MP for Newark told BBC Radio Kent he had resigned from government “because I didn’t want to be another minister who made promises about stopping the boats that I couldn’t keep”.
So far in 2024, 561 small boats are known to have made the journey across the Channel carrying at least 29,867 migrants.
The Home Office said it would “stop at nothing” to dismantle people-smuggling gangs and bring them to justice.
