Eamonn Holmes brands Keir Starmer a 'massive suckup' as he fumes 'put me in the Treasury, I'll sort it out!'

Political commentator Duncan Barkes joined the criticism, saying Sir Keir's major policy moves in the last 18 months "have failed".

The pair were discussing Britain's migrant crisis, after it has been revealed in a damning new report that the Home Office "doesn't know" how many asylum seekers have gone missing since entering the UK.

Eamonn fumed that Sir Keir just "tries to hug everyone" rather than sort out the issue and strike a deal with France to push boats back into their waters.

Speaking on GB News Breakfast, Eammonn said: "Keir Starmer’s approach to things is to suck up to everybody, to hug everybody and to be everybody's mate, I think.”

Political commentator Duncan Barkes replied: “He does like to hug, doesn't he. He likes a hug, Bear hugs."

He added: “What I find really interesting about what Starmer has attempted to do is that everything in the last 18 months has failed. I was thinking about this when I was driving in earlier.

"We had this initial announcement where we’d lose more funding to the French Government to stop the boats coming off the beaches in France. That didn’t work.

“Then we had this bizarre one-in, one-out policy that's not worked. And it goes back to the point you made.

"Even some politicians in our country, including our Prime Minister, are quite happy just to talk."

Eamonn said: “Yes, it doesn’t achieve anything but they talk the talk. Who pays the bills? We pay the bills, all the time.

"It’s always the taxpayer picking up the tab. Always.

“And when people say this country has no money and we’re all broken, put me in the Treasury, I’ll sort it out in no time.”

The National Audit Office (NAO) warned this morning that the UK’s asylum system is riddled with serious failings.

The damning report also revealed the asylum system cost the taxpayer £4.9billion in 2024-25, primarily for providing taxpayer-funded migrant hotels and other accommodations.

The sum does not include major expenditures, such as legal aid for asylum seekers' lawyers and the costs incurred by local councils when they assume responsibility for supporting successful claimants, meaning the true figure could be significantly higher.

"We found several examples of data that could help the Government better understand outcomes within the asylum system that were not routinely being collected, or which they could not provide," the watchdog said.

"For example the Home Office did not hold complete data on the number who absconded from the asylum system".

A Home Office spokesman said: "The Home Secretary recently announced the most sweeping changes to the asylum system in a generation to deal with the problems outlined in this report.

"We are already making progress with nearly 50,000 people with no right to be here removed, a 6 per cent rise in illegal working arrests and over 21,000 small boat crossing attempts prevented so far this year.

"Our new reforms will restore order and control, remove the incentives which draw people to come to the UK illegally and increase removals of those with no right to be here."