Rishi Sunak told GB News that European leaders were starting to realise he has taken the right approach to tackling illegal migration in an interview at the Conservative Party Conference.
Boasting that where "Britain leads, others will follow", the Prime Minister said Government leaders on the continent had started to appreciate the impact his plan to stop the number of small boats crossing the English Chanel was having.
"For the first time since small boats have become a thing, the numbers are down this year. They are down, they are down by a fifth," Sunak told GB News.
"That hasn't happened anywhere else in Europe."
The Prime Minister said Europe had changed its view on his migration approach
GB NEWS
He added: "I talk to other European leaders a lot when I'm out and about, they're increasingly seeing that too.
"The conversation on this in Europe has changed.
"When I set out my stall on this eight months ago, again lots of people criticised me, but what you're seeing now from lots of other European leaders is an acknowledgement that what I said is right."
Last weekend GB News revealed 25,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel so far this year.
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He said that it was important the Rwanda scheme now got up and running
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By the start of October 2022, over 33,000 people had made the crossing, that’s around 8,000 more than have made the crossing so far this year.
Sunak said his deal with Albania, which sees illegal migrants from the country quickly returned to their homeland was partially responsible for the drop.
He said: "They're down because we're doing the new deal I signed with Albania.
"We've returned almost 3,000 illegal migrants to Albania, and you know what? They've stopped coming.
"We need to get Rwanda up and running. Now, I'm confident that the plans we've got in place will work, they will deliver.
"We've got a lot of work to do, of course, we've got a lot of work to do but this is a huge priority to me and we will make a difference."
Last month Labour's Sir Keir Starmer claimed "the government has lost control" of the small boats crisis.
He said he wanted to do a deal with Europe to help reduce the number of crossings.
