The government has lost control of immigration due to “stupid decisions” made by ministers, according to Shadow Home Secretary James Cleverly.
He told GB News: “The figures about asylum, asylum seekers and arrivals and any backlog were reported every single quarter, if Labour are telling you or anyone else they did not know the figures, they are lying.
“The figures were in the public domain. The pressure that is building is because of their decision to dismantle some of the work I was doing to break the business model of the people smugglers.
“11,000 people have arrived illegally on small boats since Labour took office. That is a big increase. People are dying in the channel. They have lost control because they had a plan to win the election, but no plan to govern.
“And just as Rachel Reeves is trying to deceive the British people about the tax rises that she is about to announce in the Budget, they are trying to deceive the British people, because their stupid decisions cost lives in the Channel and now will reverse the program I had closing asylum hotels.”
Asked if the Tories were wrong to adopt the stop the boats slogan, he said: “Stopping the boats was absolutely what we wanted to achieve, but my frustration was that because we focused on those three words, we didn't tell the British people that our work with the French authorities stopped about half of the attempted boat crossings.
“We didn't really get a chance to talk about that because we kept using that slogan, the fact we were interrupting the supply of illicit outboard motors, which was making it hard for the people smugglers, the fact we were interrupting their supplies of illicit finance again.
“All these things were making the smuggling operation much harder for these criminals. But because of those three words, and because people were saying, ‘have you stopped the boats?’ And of course, we weren't able to say yes.
“I think it obscured the really fantastic work that we had been doing for quite some time, the aspiration was absolutely sound.
“I wanted to and still want to stop the boats, but having that as a yardstick of our performance, I think, obscured the good work that we've done.”
Asked if he had been attacking Kemi Badenoch, he said: “No. Kemi is a long-standing friend. We've been campaigning together for a very, very long time.
“What I said is that when candidates are asked questions and give answers, they have to be held account to the answers that they have given.
“But I have always campaigned positively about my own record, my own ideas and my own capabilities, and I've always said other candidates have to run their campaigns in the way they feel appropriate.”
