Yvette Cooper told to 'swallow her pride' and reinstate Rwanda plan in blistering attack by Boris Johnson: 'Infuriating!'

Discussing Britain's migrant crisis with GB News Political Correspondent Katherine Forster, Mr Johnson stated: "Speaking as the Prime Minister who brought migration in the first full year of my premiership down to its lowest level for 40 years, and what you had then of course was post Covid, you had lots of EU students coming back.

"But what I also did was take back control of our borders, so I took back legal control of everybody coming in legally."

Citing the Rwanda plan as the "right plan" to tackle the small boat Channel crossings, the former Tory leader said: "We got back full legal control, and we had a plan, which I think I announced only a couple of months before, tragically, I had to leave office with the Rwanda plan.

"And actually, it is the right plan. And what's so infuriating is to watch a brilliant British idea, which is what the Rwanda plan was, now being taken up by other countries."

Pointing out that the plan meant illegal migrants "being processed in Rwanda" rather than Britain, he explained: "On the Rwanda trip we had all these quite tough egg lefty journalists, like the BBC, and we showed them the accommodation that people were going to have in Rwanda under the plan, and they melted.

"They could see that it made sense. And what it would have meant is you arrive in one of these dinghies from Calais, from the French beaches, and immediately, no lawyers, you're processed in Rwanda."

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Calling on Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to "swallow her pride" and reinstate the Rwanda plan, Mr Johnson fumed: "I think, seriously, what the Government should do, what Yvette Cooper should do, is swallow a lot of pride and implement the Rwanda plan.

"That's what they need to do. They should go back to Kigali, they should say, look, we've goofed, we've made a big mistake, and we've spent a huge amount of money already on the deal."

Challenged by Katherine on Labour's stance on the Rwanda plan, claiming that them bringing back the scheme is "not going to happen", Mr Johnson disagreed.

He stated: "They've done plenty of other U turns, they've done plenty of other U turns. They did a U turn on the Winter Fuel Payment, why don’t they do a U-turn on this?"

Questioned on whether it is necessary for the UK to withdraw from the ECHR in order to tackle the surging migrant crisis, Mr Johnson admitted that only leaving the convention "doesn't fix" the problem.

The ex-Prime Minister told GB News: "Leaving the ECHR on its own doesn't fix this, I think it does help in a lot of cases, I've come round to it, definitely. But it's the Rwanda plan.

"You're sitting in Calais and you're thinking, 'what's going to happen to me when I arrive in Kent? Am I going to get immediately taken to a hotel? Are UK lawyers immediately going to hand me their cards saying you've got a problem ring me up, or am I going to find myself immediately flown to a Central African country?'

"I think it would be that's what we need to do. And actually, Chris, Philp, the Conservative Shadow Home Secretary has done a very good job of holding the Government to account on this and reminding them of their failure on Rwanda.

"Keir Starmer was so pathetic, he actually went to Albania. He went to Albania to try and do a Rwanda style deal with Edi Rama, and Edi Rama told him to bog off basically. That's what we need to do."