Sir Keir Starmer has been scolded for his handling of Britain's migrant crisis by ex-Immigration Minister Kevin Foster, as he claimed the Labour Government has "no real strategy".

Speaking to GB News, Foster stated that although "smash the gangs is a great election slogan", the plan "simply isn't working".

Small boat crossings hit another record figure on Tuesday as Channel migrant numbers surpassed 20,000, the highest number at this point in the year since records began.

The latest eye-watering figure is 50 per cent more than the 13,489 who had arrived in the UK by this point last year.

Keir Starmer has been blasted for his handling of the migrant crisis by ex-Immigration Minister Kevin Foster

Delivering his verdict on the soaring Channel crossings, Foster told GB News: "I suspect that probably sometime later this month we'll be talking about it going through 30,000, at the rates of arrivals we are seeing.

"This is the highest rate of arrivals we've seen at this point at any year since the small boat crisis began.

"It's a clear sign that smashing the gangs, a great slogan for a general election campaign, but not a real strategy for Government, it just simply isn't working."

Urging Starmer to "widen his strategy" to cut the soaring number of illegal arrivals, Foster added: "The Government needs to look at a wider strategy across all the areas, from what attracts people to do this, to how they're processed, to then how they're removed alongside prosecuting the gangs involved in this work.

"But in many cases, they just seem to be doubling down on what their strategy already is, and that just isn't working."

More than 20,000 migrants have now crossed the Channel into Britain

Asked by host Martin Daubney if the Labour Government should "stop sending money" to France, Foster suggested that Starmer should look at places like "America and Greece" in how they are processing illegal migrants.

Foster explained: "I think what we need is not just having Rwanda as part of a deterrent, and yes, that would have had an impact and we'd seen numbers start to fall, but it's looking at the whole process.

"Like what we've just seen in the United States, when people arrive, it's what you do with them, how you hold them, how you make sure you process them quickly and then look to remove them.

"And by the way, it's not just Donald Trump doing that, Greece has done that with large accommodation centres."

Noting the role of France in tackling migrant crossings, Foster claimed that the crisis would end "very quickly" if the French helped take back migrants that have made the crossing into Britain.

Foster told GB News that smashing the gangs 'simply isn't working'

Foster said: "If we could return people to France, that would end this very quickly, although some of the deals being talked about seem to involve us potentially taking people one way for sending people back, which could undermine that idea.

"France could push ahead with that if that's what the UK wanted to do. So we do have to have a general approach to this, there's not just one solution, but we can certainly see that just saying smash the gangs isn't working."

A Home Office spokesman said: "We all want to end the dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.

"The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay and we will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice."