A SENIOR Tory today claimed he was pelted with bottles and had a “curved machete” pulled on him during a visit to a migrant camp in northern France.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said he was talking to people in the Jungle camp by Dunkirk when the terrifying encounter unfolded.
AFPFrench cops at the migrant camp in Dunkirk yesterday[/caption]
AFPThe officers led a dismantling operation at the camp in northern France yesterday[/caption]
PAShadow Home Secretary Chris Philp[/caption]
AFPMigrants running towards a smuggler’s boat in the English Channel[/caption]
He told GB News shortly after the incident: “I was talking to migrants there literally about ten or 15 minutes ago.
“First of all, as I was talking to some migrants, another one pulled out a curved machete and started brandishing it, which point we left pretty quickly.
“And then as we were leaving, we got pelted with glass bottles.
“And as we drove off other bottles got thrown at the car.”
The Tory MP was visiting northern France as part of a fact-finding trip on the illegal migration crisis, meeting police, locals and aid workers.
Mr Philp also said on social media he was on a beach at 5am that had seen repeated small boat launches, including one the previous day, but spotted no French police on patrol.
It comes as Home Office figures yesterday showed 474 arrived on Monday alone, taking the total since Sir Keir Starmer‘s landslide to a whopping 50,271.
Arrivals so far this year are 47 per cent higher than the same point in 2024 and 67 per cent higher than in 2023.
And a new record was reportedly broken earlier this morning as 107 people were crammed onto just one migrant boat overnight in the largest single load to arrive in UK waters.
GB News reported the dinghy the migrants arrived on was a new design as much longer than the inflatable rafts normally used by people smugglers.
The biggest number to make it to the UK had been 96.
One senior maritime security source told the news organisation: “This is highly alarming.
“It looks like the smuggling gangs have specified larger boats, which we know are designed and built in back street factories in China.
“Bigger boats mean bigger numbers of arrivals, at a time when we’re already seeing record numbers crossing from France.
“If we are witnessing the advent of a new, larger migrant boat, this is the worst possible news for those attempting to smash the gangs.”
Home Office Minister Dame Diana Johnson earlier today blamed the weather for the record numbers under Labour.
She told LBC: “Well, I absolutely accept that because of, and I know you’ll probably pick me up on this, but because of the weather conditions. But you know that that is a factor.”
But earlier this year, ministers boasted they had “broken the link” between calm seas and migrant surges.
The “one-in, one-out” migrant swap scheme with France also came into effect last week.
Only a handful of migrants are understood to have been detained so far.
Under the Macron-Starmer deal, migrants arriving illegally by boat can be sent back to France – in return for Britain taking in the same number of approved asylum seekers.
GettyThe Tory MP was visiting northern France as part of a fact-finding trip on the illegal migration crisis[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
