'PM has turned truth on its head by blaming Brexit for migrants crisis'

NIGEL Farage has accused Sir Keir Starmer of “turning the truth on its head” after blaming him and Brexit for fuelling the Channel migrants crisis.

- By Michael Knowles and Martyn Brown

The Reform UK leader hit out after the Prime Minister yesterday labelled the dinghies heading for the UK “Farage boats”.

Writing exclusively for the Daily Express today, Mr Farage branded the PM’s claims as “an extraordinarily devious and dishonest effort to mislead the British people”.

He said: “The Prime Minister has once again turned the truth on its head by trying to blame Brexit — and me — for the thousands of illegal immigrants landing on our shores.” And he rubbished Sir Keir’s defence of the EU’s Dublin Convention — which let countries remove asylum seekers to the first member state they arrived in.

Sir Keir claimed that under the convention while still in the European Union, the UK “had a returns agreement with every country in the EU”.

Mr Farage said: “Until 2020, when the UK left the European Union, the Dublin Convention did allow us to try to return some illegal immigrants to other EU member states.

“But they could also return asylum seekers to us. And, as with so many EU deals, Britain got the worst end of the bargain.”

The Dublin Convention saw an average of just 560 people a year removed from the UK between 2008 and 2020.