The Tories allowed small boat migrant Channel crossings to be “industrialised”, the minister for border security and asylum has claimed. 

Dame Angela Eagle took aim at the previous government and said Labour was determined to “dismantle” the people smuggling gangs. 

She made the comments as Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, holds a summit today with other senior ministers, figures from the National Crime Agency and the intelligence services aimed at destroying the gangs. 

Dame Angela told Times Radio: “It is a complex problem and there are no easy simple fixes to it. But what we know is that we have to crackdown in the way that we are talking about so that we can try to dismantle a system of getting here that has essentially been allowed to be industrialised by the previous government. 

“It will take time to dismantle it but we are determined to do so.”  

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