Lib Dem MP handed GB News grilling on call to join EU's 'migration pact': 'How on Earth is this better?!'

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Sir Ed Davey has said Nigel Farage and the Conservatives should 'hang their heads in shame' for 'breaking our borders with their bad Brexit deal'

GB News host Alex Armstrong has grilled a Liberal Democrats MP on his party leader's call to join the European Union's new Migration and Asylum Pact.

Appearing on the People's Channel, Max Wilkinson was challenged on how the move "would be any better" than the current agreements the UK has with other countries.

Sir Ed Davey has announced a plan to join the EU's pact and end small boat crossings, laying blame on Brexit, the Conservatives and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.

Sir Ed said: "Farage and the Conservatives should hang their heads in shame for breaking our borders with their bad Brexit deal. But instead of apologising to the British public, they are now exploiting the mess they created for their own gain.

"We have a plan that would finally end the small boats crisis: a pact with every EU country that will allow us to return people who come over the Channel, taking away the major pull factor that Farage and co created and destroying the business model of the criminal gangs."

Defending the plan, Mr Wilkinson told GB News that joining the pact would ensure the UK has a "proper returns agreement" with European countries.

He explained: "The EU has just recently introduced the Migration and Asylum Pact, and this is the way that the UK could join a new pact, which would mean that we have proper returns agreements with the European Union.

"We would have access to the database that the European Union keeps as well, which would mean that we would end the double dipping that sometimes happens when migrants seek asylum in the European Union and are refused, but then turn up in the UK for a second go. And that's one of the key drivers, by the way, of the small boat crossings."

Mr Wilkinson argued that since Brexit, the UK's migrant crisis in the Channel has become "disorderly".

He said: "It would mean that we can restore safety and control. No one wants to see small boat crossings, but the UK does have a historic role in making sure that there are safe ways for refugees and asylum seekers to get here, but no one wants to see it happen in a disorderly way.

"And we're pointing out that since Brexit, it has become more disorderly, and Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, the Conservative Party and Reform, they said that we would have more control over asylum if we left the EU and in fact, we've had the opposite."

Challenging the Lib Dem MP, host Alex Armstrong questioned how joining this new pact would be "any better" than previous pacts agreed with EU countries.

Alex said: "The reality is that these pacts have existed before, we did have a returns pact for people who might be illegal migrants coming into the country. In 2017, we put in an outstanding 5,700 requests, but only 314 ever made it back. So how on Earth would this be any better?"

Mr Wilkinson responded: "Well, this is talking about what's going to happen in the future, the 200,000 people who have arrived by small boat crossing since the Brexit referendum, and by the way, there were almost nobody arriving by small boat before Brexit.

"Those 200,000 people, that's part of our system now and they're being processed or they have already been processed. The EU has worked for 10 years to come up with this new pact, which supersedes the previous one, and is going to bring order and safety to the system."

The MP stressed that the pact would "block" illegal migrants from travelling through several safe countries.

He told GB News: "One of the things it's suggesting, and indeed it compels asylum seekers to do so, is that when asylum seekers arrive in the EU that they must claim in the first country which they arrive into.

"And that, of course, means that we will have an end to one of the big problems that we hear about so much in this country, which is that people have gone through several safe countries before they arrive in the UK to claim asylum, which makes no sense."

Mr Wilkinson concluded that joining the pact is the "only comprehensive way" to stop Britain's migrant crisis.

He said: "We can't pretend the UK just exists in supreme isolation. We're only going to deal with the small boats crisis if we have agreements with our nearest neighbours."