‘All migrants in Calais Jungle will claim UK asylum if we quit Europe’

Thousands of migrants camped at Calais would claim asylum in Britain if the UK quits the European Union, a former Immigration Minister warned today.

Tory MP Damian Green said France would respond to a Brexit by closing the UK border force currently located on French soil at the Eurotunnel entrance.

With barriers relaxed, the entire 3,000-strong population of the encampment known as The Jungle would cross the Channel, he claimed — with thousands more being attracted to try their luck.

“If we pull out of the EU, it’s overwhelmingly likely the French would take the opportunity to end our privilege of having our border controls in their country,” he told the Evening Standard.

“So the first point at which we could stop all those people in the camps at Calais would be when they reach Do-ver — which would give them the right to claim asylum in this country.”

This week Kent council warned that children’s services were under huge strain from a surge in unaccompanied young people in care, up from 630 in August to 1,382 now.

Hundreds of adults have managed to jump on lorries and board ferries to slip past the border and reach Britain, despite the UK paying £7 million for a mile-long fence around the tunnel area. People living in The Jungle are enduring freezing conditions in tents, mud, and lack of food and clean water.

Mr Green, MP for Ashford, is a board member of the Britain Stronger In Europe campaign, launched ahead of this year’s historic in-out referendum. He attacked the idea that quitting the EU would reduce migration and claimed an influx from Calais would create a magnet for more migrants and refugees.

“This would be the biggest pull factor imaginable to encourage people to come to this country,” he said. “Anyone who thinks that leaving the EU would reduce the number of asylum seekers coming to Britain is just deluded.”

Eurosceptics argue that only by quitting the EU can the UK cut record immigration numbers of more than 300,000 a year. Under EU rules, citizens of other countries have the right to work in any member state.