France has squandered the majority of the £800 million given to them to prevent Channel migrant crossings, Robert Jenrick has declared.
The former Immigration Minister said “no one” is doing “anything” to stop asylum seekers travelling along the French coast on public buses to different boat launch points.
And crossings are up almost 50% this year, Home Office figures show, with 29,003 arrivals.
But Mr Jenrick rejected the claims by charities that many small boat arrivals are “fleeing persecution”.
He said of those he spoke to during a trip to Calais: “They were all coming to the UK for economic opportunities.”
More than 3,400 migrants have crossed the Channel since Labour struck its one-in, one-out deal with France.
And nobody has been returned yet. Paris is also yet to enact its new policy of intercepting migrant boats in the water.
Mr Jenrick declared, in an interview with The Spectator: “Each and every one of the people in those camps is heading for the UK and they could be living in a hotel at the end of your street. Few spoke good English.
“Not a single person I spoke to said that they were fleeing persecution. They were all coming to the UK for economic opportunities.
“I literally saw a group of 40 or 50 migrants heading towards the main road holding life jackets, with people smugglers at the front and the back.
“They then caught a public bus to Dunkirk. The police, the local council – everybody knows it’s happening and no one is doing anything to stop it. The £800 million that we’ve given to the French is largely wasted.
“We have to take matters into our own hands.”
French police sparked fury last week after revealing officers don’t “really want to go into the water” to stop record numbers of migrants.
Union barons complained about a lack of training and equipment, adding they were yet to receive any new orders.
But the Daily Express has been told officers were due to ramp up interceptions this week. No crossings have been attempted due to rough conditions and high winds.
A senior border source told the Daily Express the move is “aimed at stopping the taxi boats that travel from inland canals out to the Channel, picking up migrants along the way”.
This follows “pilot schemes” over the Summer, when officers were seen wading into the water and slashing migrant dinghies, forcing people back onto the beaches.
Marc Musiol, a UN1TE representative for border police at Calais, Dunkirk, and Coquelles, declared “there’s nothing on the horizon to suggest that we’re going to change the way we work”.
He said: “As of today, the personnel of the general service unit here at Coquelles have not received any new intervention doctrines.
In June, the French cabinet agreed to allow officers to intercept migrant boats within 300 metres of the coast.
The tactic is considered crucial to preventing people smugglers launching so-called “taxi-boats”, where migrants wade out into the water and wait for a dinghy.
This leads to chaotic scenes as asylum seekers try to haul themselves onto already dangerously overcrowded boats.
Jean-Christophe Couvy, general secretary of UN1TE, added: “As a union member, I’m going to tell my colleagues not to go into the water.”
Mr Couvy said officers were yet to receive any instructions about intercepting small boats at sea.
He added: “We can’t ask officers to risk their lives without protection.
“I don’t want a police officer to drown because we ask him to go into the water and stop migrants.
“I don’t think officers really want to go into the water to stop people.
“It’s not part of our duties. If we do it to save people, that’s different.”
Mr Jenrick has become one of the most outspoken critics of policies on the small boat crisis and resigned from Rishi Sunak’s Government because the former Prime Minister was not going far enough on the Rwanda deportation scheme.
The former Immigration Minister told The Spectator he began to take a harder position after a trip to Dover.
He said of a trip to Dover: “Migrants were getting out of the boats, climbing up the hill, and residents were finding them in their garden or even their kitchen to steal food and drinks from their fridges.
“The anger and frustration of those people was absolutely palpable because they felt the Westminster elite didn’t give a damn about them.”
Mr Jenrick on Thursday declared Britain needs a decade of emigration to restore control of the borders.
“Damaging though illegal migration is, legal migration is even more harmful to the country because of the sheer eye-watering numbers of people who have been coming across in recent years perfectly legally.
“It’s putting immense pressure on public services.
“I think the country now needs breathing space after this period of mass migration. The age of being open to the world and his wife, who are low-wage, low-skilled individuals, and their dependents has to come to an end. Reversing recent low-skilled migration will likely mean a sustained period of net emigration.
“I would support that.
“Of course, we stay open to the very best and brightest. We want the coders, the doctors, the serial entrepreneurs, the people who are clearly going to make a massive economic contribution to the country.
“How long would this last? A decade? ‘It could be, yes.”
Mr Jenrick also accused former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of being “wrong” on the economic arguments linked to immigration.
Shocking projections have revealed migration will lead to another five million people living in the UK in just seven years.
The population will surge to 72.5 million – up from 67.6 million – by 2032, heaping more pressure on the NHS, housing, roads and schools.
And critics have warned people are not getting richer, despite GDP increasing.
Mr Jenrick said: “It fell on deaf ears. I think Rishi, like others, was wrong on the economic arguments.
“I think, like a number of people, he didn’t see the social and cultural impact of legal migration. My view is that mass uncontrolled migration has and is wrecking British culture and identity.”