‘No asylum, prison instead’: Crete’s migrant crackdown stuns Nigel Farage as Greece slashes small boat arrivals

The Greek Government has introduced severe punishments to give a “clear message that the country will no longer give asylum for the next three months".

Nigel invited Ms Zervoudaki onto the People’s Channel to find out more about the island’s success and perhaps adopt some ideas of his own.

She said: “I would like to say things are changing. The Minister responsible for asylum has changed the law. That means people coming to our country, because as you know, Greece is the entry to Europe, will be considered prisoners.

“All these people coming from for example, Egypt and Bangladesh, where there is no war, will be arrested.”

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Nigel asked what the “next step” is for migrants who have been arrested, and Ms Zervoudaki said all of them will be deported.

“Our Minister for Migration has told us that until now, about 1,000 people have been sent back to their countries”, she said.

“All the others will not be allowed to apply for asylum for three months. After three months, if they request it, it will then be decided if they get an asylum card or not.”

Nigel asked whether everybody across the political spectrum is supportive of Greece’s newfound heavy-handed approach, and her response suggested many on the Left are desperate to stifle it.

“Of course not”, she said.

“All the other parties in our council don’t agree with the new law. They are against it.

“The Government has the majority and therefore the law has been voted through.”

Ms Zervoudaki said that while the policy has had the intended impact short-term, there is a chance that is due to the favourable weather conditions.

She warned that once the seas settle, the number of migrants attempting perilous journeys across the Mediterranean could surge despite the legal ramifications now in store.

“We are not sure if the immigrants will stop coming”, she explained.

“We don’t have the amount of immigrants that came in July. We have less, but the weather conditions are not so good because it’s windy.”

Nigel was finding out about the Greek policy during a busy week for his own party as they set out radical plans to carry out mass deportations from Britain.

He revealed radical proposals to enable the deportation of 600,000 asylum seekers by withdrawing Britain from the European Convention on Human Rights.

Reform UK is currently leading national opinion polls despite having just four MPs, plans to scrap the Human Rights Act and abandon international treaties that have prevented forced removals of asylum seekers.

The Reform UK leader warned that Britain faces the threat of "major civil disorder" without immediate action on immigration.

"It is an invasion, as these young men illegally break into our country," he stated during the announcement.

His party's strategy involves dismantling the current legal framework that governs asylum procedures in Britain.

Beyond leaving the ECHR and eliminating the Human Rights Act, Reform UK would also abandon various international agreements that courts have cited when preventing deportations.

These sweeping changes represent the most aggressive immigration stance proposed by any major British political party in recent memory.

Labour's Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook, speaking for the Government on Tuesday, dismissed Reform's plans as "a series of gimmicks" that would prove ineffective.

He highlighted that the ECHR forms the foundation of crucial international agreements, particularly the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland after thirty years of sectarian conflict.