The Government ought to be open and transparent with the public about who exactly is coming here, says Darren Grimes

How often have you heard somebody making a case for border controls and managed migration being howled down as some swivel-eyed bigot, a racist, a real heartless swine? The British have repeatedly voted for robust border controls, the kind of checks and balances that apply to most nation states worldwide whose borders aren't leaky like a sieve.

Time and again, we were told that we couldn't have border controls because we were a member of the EU; we voted for Brexit to take back control and bring an end to this idea that Britain could handle unsustainable levels coming here. Unsustainable numbers at a time when we have a cost of living crisis, a housing crisis, an NHS crisis, a school places crisis, a dentist crisis, and the list goes on and on.

We've also seen the continued security threat that is the English Channel crisis. According to figures from the Ministry of Defence, the number of people who have illegally crossed the Channel this year has passed 18,000. 1,709 people have been brought to the UK so far in August. We will see a smashing of the number of arrivals recorded last year.

The argument goes that these people are scrambling for the dinghies to escape war and persecution; they could be LGBT foreigners from nations where being gay could see you harassed or murdered, so how could we possibly oppose their arrival? How could we heartless hicks oppose the arrival of those escaping the bullet and the bomb? This is the argument that the lefty lawyers and politicians use to gang up against the voters in seeking to thwart the deportation of those brought to our shores.

Only, that isn't reflected in the facts revealed to us thanks to a leaked document passed to the leader of Reform UK, Richard Tice. This document indicates that 40 per cent of those arriving on our shores are from Albania. Others come from stable regimes, including Turkey, Egypt, Vietnam and India. Albania isn't exactly a land of milk and honey, but it's not some war-torn hell hole. This is primarily about economic migration; it's not about facing life or death and seeking refuge in a safe country.

As I've said before, if it genuinely was, these people have passed through several safe countries by the time they get here, only to be placed in taxpayer-funded hotels as everyday Britons struggle to keep the lights on. Some people have reportedly left these hotels without our authorities registering their photographs or fingerprints. So that's people that are coming and going as they please, that we know nothing about.

Albanian criminal gangs are now among the most prominent and notorious in the UK. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that some aren't coming here because they want to abide by our laws and traditions. Some may even be in danger of modern-day slavery in Britain's dark underground economy.

The Government had seen these documents before Tice ever did. We weren't told about the facts. Why is that? Why is it that the two leadership candidates in, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, have barely said a thing about how they'd stop the invasion at our southern border? Why have other broadcasters not quizzed them on it?

The Government ought to be open and transparent with the public about who exactly is coming here and what steps they're going to take to finally end this cruel trade of people and this assault on our generosity and goodwill as a nation.