Kelvin MacKenzie has bemoaned the eye-watering number of migrants heading into the UK while claiming the figures “will never come down”.
In a scathing rant on GB News, the former Sun editor admitted he has “given up” with Rishi Sunak as the prime minister struggles to stem the tide.
It comes after Home Office chiefs warned universities about 3,000 foreign students claiming asylum within months of arriving in the UK.
Quizzed about the “loophole opportunity” being used by asylum seekers, Kelvin MacKenzie said the net migration numbers are not likely to slow anytime soon.
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“What you’re looking at in the world, you don’t have to be a genius to say ‘it isn’t a safe place’”, he said.
“It looks like a great place to be here, great benefits system, you will either have a hotel or a £300k flat in Chertsey which I see is the latest piece of madness to deal with the huge inflow.
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Kelvin MacKenzie spoke to Mark Dolan
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“Every time there is a war, someone says ‘you have to get to mainland Europe’, what happens when there is more wars in Africa? More in the Middle East?
“They’re going to come here. I’ve given up with Rishi Sunak. Even Suella talks a good game, but no one does anything.”
It comes after an expert forecast suggesting net migration to the UK is unlikely to drop below pre-Brexit levels by the end of the decade.
The number is likely to remain at around 250,000 to 350,000 a year, according to the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics (LSE).
The figure rose to 606,000 in the year to December 2022, the highest on record for a calendar year.
Despite a Tory 2019 manifesto commitment to “bring overall numbers down”, the official number was 488,000 in 2021.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the rise in immigration does represent a “slowing in growth”.
"This may reflect the temporary nature of these world events, as well as beginning to see higher numbers of international students emigrate. We will continue to monitor these patterns in the coming months," it said.
The body added the war in Ukraine and unrest in Hong Kong has contributed to a “unique year”.
The figure is the annual number of people arriving in the UK when both immigration and emigration are taken into account.