The home secretary described the numbers making the journey as “too high” but claimed it would have been “thousands” higher if the Conservative Party was still in power.
Some 34,880 people have arrived in Britain on small boats so far this year, up 20 per cent on this time last year but down 22 per cent on 2022. Ms Cooper repeatedly declined to say when the public could expect to see the number of small boat crossings fall.
She told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “These levels are far too high, this is dangerous what’s happening. Of course we want to continue to progress, of course we want to see the boat crossings come down as rapidly as possible.”
Ms Cooper conceded that remaining under 2022’s record high would be “no comfort” to people while numbers continue to rise.
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