Britain’s Defense Secretary has admitted that the country has “lost control of its borders” after nearly 1,200 migrants managed to cross the Channel in a single day on Saturday.

John Healey described the scenes as “pretty shocking” and said that people-smugglers were able to load small boats in France “like a taxi”.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has been blasted over what was called a ‘day of shame’ as the surge in dinghy crossings overwhelmed French and UK border patrol vessels. 

The Telegraph reports: The 1,000-plus arrivals marked the highest number of people to cross the Channel in a single day so far this year. Some 18 dinghies, each carrying more than 50 migrants, were reported to have left the French coast.

The Coastguard was forced to call on fishing boats to assist a yacht and a kayak that were in trouble, as Border Force vessels and lifeboats were overwhelmed rescuing people making the perilous journey.

Asked about the situation on Sunday, Mr Healey admitted that Britain had “lost control” of its borders.

He told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News: “Pretty shocking, those scenes yesterday. Truth is, Britain’s lost control of its borders over the last five years, and the last government last year left an asylum system in chaos and record levels of immigration.”

Mr Healey blamed France for allowing smugglers to scoop up migrants like a “taxi” service after failing to change the rules to let police intervene in shallow waters despite agreeing to do so.

“I think yesterday tells us a really big problem, which is, you’ve got French police unable to intervene and intercept the boats when they’re in shallow waters,” he said.

“That means we saw it. We saw the smugglers launching elsewhere and coming around like a taxi to pick them up.”

Mr Healey said France had not yet put the agreed rule change into action, adding: “They’re not doing it – but for the first time for years, we’ve got the level of co-operation needed.

“We’ve got the agreement that they will change the way they work, and our concentration now is to push them to get that into operation so they can intercept these smugglers and stop these people in the boats, not just on the shore.”

Videos on TikTok showed migrants packed onto small dinghies smiling while making the dangerous crossing.

Mr Healey’s comments came as the Home Office confirmed that 1,194 migrants crossed the Channel in 18 boats on Saturday, beating the previous high of 825 earlier this month.

That takes the total number of people to have crossed so far this year to 14,811 – the highest ever recorded in the first five months of a year. It is 42 per cent higher than this time last year.

The French maritime prefecture said it had stopped 184 migrants on Saturday – just 15 per cent of the attempted crossings.

The Tories described Saturday’s record crossings as a “day of shame for Labour” and said Britain had become a nation “reduced to chaos on the high seas”, with Border Force at breaking point.

The crossings come less than three weeks after the Prime Minister published the Government’s plans to reduce net migration and toughen the requirements for migrants to work, live and study in the UK.