Brutal nickname for Starmer as border chiefs reveal illegal migrants label him 'friendly'

As many as 60,000 migrants could cross the Channel this year as Keir Starmer is known as the “friendly one”, a former immigration chief has warned.

Kevin Saunders, who led Border Force teams in Calais, urged Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to convince Paris to deploy the Gendarmes Maritime to “intercept and return” small boats.

And Mr Saunders warned the scrapping of the Rwanda deportation scheme has delighted those hoping to cross the Channel.

Former immigration chief Kevin Saunders told the Daily Express: "The situation on the Channel has now reached a new crisis with the change of government. The only deterrent on the table is gone.

"If we are to have any chance of stopping the boats, we need to make the UK into a less attractive place for migrants to come to. We now have an extra 52,000 would-be asylum seekers to deal with.

"The new Home Secretary must immediately open talks with France about action to prevent small boats leaving French territorial waters. This would mean that the French would deploy the Gendarmerie Maritime onto the Channel to intercept and return any small boats that left France."

He added: “Now, of course, we're seeing that the Kurds over in northern France have come up with a name for Kier, which they which I think means "the friendly one", because they all believe that he's going to be very good for illegal migration."

More than 13,500 migrants have crossed the Channel so far this year, up 18 per cent on last year.

The number of small boat arrivals in the first six months of this year was a record high, prompting renewed fears the crisis will continue for years.

Sir Keir Starmer and Ms Cooper has vowed to create a Border Security Command to “smash” the smuggling gangs.

This will combine the National Crime Agency, MI5, Immigration Enforcement and the Crown Prosecution Service to go after the criminals.

They will be given counter-terrorism powers.

Recruitment of specialist investigators is expected to begin in the “coming days” and Ms Cooper will begin looking for a military or intelligence chief to lead the Border Security Command.

A surge in crossings is expected this week if the weather calms down.

Lucy Moreton of the ISU union that represents Border Force staff said: “The boats will come and numbers are likely to continue rising.

“There are a large number of people in France wanting to make that crossing. The demand is there and there’s no suggestion that it will stop any time soon.”

Ben Brindle, a researcher at the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory, warned that the ever-shifting networks of smugglers responsible for organising Channel crossings have become resilient to attempted crackdowns.

He added: “The gangs are decentralised – there’s not some big boss you can smash.

“The Conservative government was also very hot on enforcement, so it’s not a new direction. Labour say they’ll do it more effectively but it’s not clear how that would happen and what it would look like.”

Mr Saunders added: "The trouble is (the PM) is being very negative about Rwanda. Well, that's fine.

“He's bound to be. "But we don't have anything from him about how they're going to stop the boats. It's going to be open season.

“And I reckon that we're looking at between 50 and 60,000 coming across the channel this year.

"There's been a lot of unease in the camps in northern France about the Rwanda scheme. They were very, very worried. And we saw people fleeing to the Republic of Ireland because they didn't want to be included in it.

"Now, of course, we're seeing that the Kurds over in northern France have come up with a name for Kier, which they which I think means "the friendly one", because they all believe that he's going to be very good for illegal migration."