NIGEL FARAGE: This is our plan to stop the boats. Now I challenge Open Borders Burnham to call a general election

All the way back on May 9, 2020 – when it was already clear that large numbers of illegal migrants were sailing across the Channel – I warned on social media: ‘This is the beginning of an invasion.’

It sparked a chorus of condemnation from the woke Left. But the very next day, I went on LBC radio and reinforced my point.

I didn’t choose that word lightly. But was I wrong? That year, almost 8,500 boat migrants landed on the South Coast (compared to 1,800 in 2019 and just 300 in 2018). In 2021, some 28,526 made the crossing; by 2022, it was a whopping 45,774; and last year at least 41,472 came over.

In total, more than 200,000 migrants have now sailed across the Channel. If that’s not an invasion, I don’t know what is.

This problem festered under the Tories as well as Labour.

For years the two largest parties in Parliament and their friends in the establishment media have referred to the invasion as a ‘small boats crisis’ – as if it were an unavoidable act of God, like an earthquake.

But the ‘crisis’ only continues because what I call the ‘uniparty’ has failed for years to do what’s necessary to stop it. Don’t take my word for it: the voters know it, too. According to a recent poll by Ipsos, just 16 per cent of British people now say they trust Labour the most on immigration – and a humiliating 9 per cent say the Conservative Party.

As Daily Mail readers well know, the scale of these boats increasingly beggars belief. From the small and rickety inflatables carrying just a handful of people a few years ago, today giant ‘mega-dinghies’ ferry up to 230 individuals at a time – the sort of passenger load you expect on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Nigel Farage stands in front of a 43ft replica migrant dinghy during his speech yesterday

A mega-dinghy carrying some 230 migrants heads to UK from France

We have to end this madness. That’s why, in Dover yesterday, I announced detailed plans drawn up by our impressive Reform UK policy team.

At our conference in Birmingham in September, we had already pledged to stop the boats completely in our first 100 days in office, with Operation Fortress – our blueprint for deploying the Royal Navy in the Channel – as its backbone. That plan has been endorsed by Commander Chris Grace Royal Navy (Retd) and former Merchant Navy marine engineer John Cail.

On top of that, Jordan Bardella – the favourite to be France’s next prime minister – joined me on stage at the NEC to sign a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ that his country would take back boat migrants in a wider bid to stop the crossings entirely.

Now, our newly announced Operation Restoring Justice will implement domestic deterrents that will make it impossible for illegal migrants to continue living in Britain, abusing our generosity.

At the moment, whatever Burnham claims, the single biggest draw to these men (and they are mostly men) is the prospect of a lifetime on benefits at the expense of the British taxpayer – or, for the truly ambitious, working illegally on the black market. Incredibly, some 130,000 people without British nationality now claim universal credit, with another 52,000 entitled to stay here under what’s called ‘humanitarian protection’. This is costing the country billions. Equally astonishingly, last year almost one in 40 social homes went to so-called ‘refugees’.

Well, under a Reform government, access to universal credit, housing benefit, free childcare and most non-contributory benefits will be restricted to British citizens only.

Meanwhile, our ‘Deliveroo Law’ will make bosses of large companies personally and criminally liable for profiting from illegal working. We’ll give councils the power to run immigration checks when they inspect premises such as restaurants and domestic properties – and, of course, we’ll end the use of migrant hotels.

Reform UK is also the only party that will close all ‘resettlement’ schemes, which have seen thousands of undeserving people brought here.

Anyone arriving through Labour’s soon-to-be ‘reopened’ routes can expect their right to remain revoked – and to be deported.

Naturally, to achieve much of this, we must leave the European Convention on Human Rights, repeal the Human Rights Act, pass the Illegal Migration (Mass Deportations) Bill and disapply the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Those countries that refuse to take back their own nationals who have illegally invaded our shores will face visa bans or tariffs. In extreme cases we will use third-country deals to deport these people elsewhere.

Finally, we will publish full data on the nationalities of criminal offenders – data that successive governments have disgracefully kept hidden from the British people.

In short, Reform UK will use every organ of the state to make it impossible for people to continue living in our country illegally.

We have now set out the most comprehensive, unapologetic and realistic plan to end the illegal-migration scam and secure our borders.

Time is running out. I challenge Open Borders Burnham to call an election and let voters decide who they want in Downing Street.