BBC Breakfast presenter Nina Warhurst grilled Labour Minister for Border Security and Asylum Angela Eagle about the record number of migrant crossings into the UK. It comes as Labour announced they were hosting a two-day summit in London with the US, China and France, along with a number of other nations, to tackle illegal migrant crossings.

The party have come under fire for their management of the crossings, as more than 6,000 people have crossed the Channel so far in 2025, making it a record start to a year for small boat arrivals. Nina asked: “So far in 2025, more than 5000 people have crossed the English Channel illegally, that’s an increase on the figures this time of year for the past three years, numbers are rising under Labour, how you in a position to host a summit like this?”

Eagle responded: “We have to tackle what is an increasingly sophisticated cross-border crime. These people come from various different routes, through the Balkans, through Africa, various other routes through Greece and what we have to do is work with the authorities in those places to stop this happening, and that’s what the summit is about. We’re also making some announcements on cracking down on illegal working in the UK. We’ve had a 40% increase in rates on employers who were illegally employing those with no right to work, and no right to be here.

“We’ve got a crack down on this all ends, we’ve got TikTok, Meta and X in at the summit so that we can talk to them about taking down more of the very sophisticated adverts that these organised immigration crime groups post on their sites to lie to people about what is likely to be awaiting them in the UK, and also to advertise their services, so we are tackling this on a whole range of different levels.

“We got to do it operationally, we’ve got to do it diplomatically, and we got to ensure that we increase the strength of our our action against these criminals, including up to, and including prosecuting them, so far in 2025.

Viewers were not impressed by her answer, as one said: “Car crash of an interview. She is certainly not across her brief. In fact she gave you the distinct mental image of her trying to tread water in the Channel but floundering & splashing around searching for a lifebuoy, just like @YvetteCooperMP yesterday with @bbclaurak.”

Another agreed: “The parlous state of the people in government is putting us all at risk. Labour are a total catastrophe,” and a thid raged Eagle “said nothing new”.