Small boat migrants have been making fake Mayday calls to French emergency crews, forcing them to be escorted to UK waters.

The new tactic involves pretending they are at risk of drowning in dinghies and phoning for help.

The French Navy and coast guard rescue the Channel crossers before realising there is no emergency.

Migrants have pretended that they are at risk of drowning so they can be taken to British shores

British Border Force vessels are then deployed to bring them to Dover.

French officials have called the method used by the migrants "abusive"; however, they have no choice but to assist them.

Gerard Barron, of the French Societe Nationale de Sauvetage en Mer, said: "This new strategy is to ask the people on the small boat to call for help and say they are in trouble when they are not.

"The smugglers tell the migrants, 'Like that, you will be escorted'. When you arrive there, the boat has nothing wrong. What they want is to be accompanied to British waters.

"It is abusive, but we cannot do otherwise. We can't turn around.

"What if the boat sinks a few minutes later?"

Reform MP Lee Anderson called for the boats to be taken back to France if they are making Mayday calls.

He said: "The French and British authorities are being hoodwinked on a daily basis by boat loads of criminals."

Migrants attempting to board a small boat in France | GETTY

The news follows over 50,000 small boat migrants landing in the UK since Labour won power last summer.

It makes grim reading for Sir Keir Starmer, who has been struggling to deal with the small boat crisis.

Despite agreeing on a partial deal to return a fraction of migrants back to France, more than 1,500 have crossed the Channel.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "Through international intelligence sharing under our Border Security Command, enhanced enforcement operations in Northern France and tougher legislation in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, we are strengthening international partnerships and boosting our ability to identify, disrupt, and dismantle criminal gangs whilst strengthening the security of our borders."