FORMER immigration minister Robert Jenrick has claimed that illegal migration “is causing untold damage to our country”.

He told GB News: “I’ve always believed very strongly on these issues, particularly on immigration. I think that illegal migration is doing untold damage to our country and the stakes are extremely high and we have to take action.

“Legal migration was a promise that we made not just in our last manifesto, but in every manifesto for nigh on 30 years and yet we’re living in a country where three quarters of a million people are coming in legally every year. And so on these two issues and others I feel extremely strongly and we need to take greater action as a Government to protect the country from this great challenge.”

On the Rwanda Bill, he told Camilla Tominey: “I chose to vote against the bill because I felt that it’s a weak bill that ultimately won’t work. And we will have to see now if in August there are still small boats crossing the Channel, then it will be shown that my argument was right, the Government’s was wrong.

“But I hope, of course, that the Prime Minister is successful because I want to see the small boats stop. I think this is doing immense damage. Think of the hotels, the billions of pounds have been wasted, the people who are dying in the Channel, the people smugglers are feasting on this appalling trade.

“I want to see the small boats stop. I believe that the way to do that is through the most robust action, and that view is formed having travelled around the world, having seen that the only countries in the world that have fixed this problem. Australia and Greece in recent years chose to take the hardest path.

“That’s what I was proposing. The Prime Minister ultimately wanted to do it in a different way.”

He added: “I think this is an immense challenge and not one that’s just a fleeting issue. It is going to be with us for many decades to come.”