on dab plus and on the talk radio app the independent republic of mike graham on talk radio

welcome back to the independent republic and mike graham right here on talk radio we are of course

with the veterans railcar just a single day service in the armed forces qualifies you for the veterans rail

card visit railcard dot co dot uk to apply we'll take some of your calls very shortly but first up we're going to talk now to

at Tony Smith, former head of the UK border force because it turns out right that yet again

there has been another record broken yesterday and don't forget we are now in the midst of November.

It's the 11th of November yesterday. Basically more people

than ever came across the channel landed on our shores over a thousand, right, making the so-called

perilous trip to the UK. It's supposed to have all died down because we're supposed to be going

into the winter months, but the weather's been quite calm. The sea was obviously quite calm yesterday.

What is going on and when the hell is it

going to stop? Tony, very good morning to you. Morning, Mike. I mean, it beggars belief this,

doesn't it? I mean, this has been the single biggest number of people that have come over in any given

year. I think we're now looking at somewhere approaching 30,000, possibly it will be 40,000 by the time we get to the end of the

year. I mean, it's unbelievable. Why can we not do something about it? Well, I think it started with a

finger in the dike, Mike, a couple of years ago, and I'm afraid that, you know, the barriers are

breaking now. People are realizing that this route is is viable i i understand

that things are really not that smooth out on the channel people are still coming across so they're

putting lives at risk the border force are struggling to pick up these numbers uh people are being sick

on on board they're arriving in very poor poor conditions. Mike, there's nowhere to put them.

Tuck Haven is only a temporary facility. It's a pretty awful scenario. It reminds me, Mike,

of my time, you know, 20 years ago when we had a similar influx across the channel coming on

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