According to The Times, the Home Secretary reportedly told Tory MPs she would write to Gérald Darmanin, the French interior minister. Ms Patel is calling on the French minister to increase beach patrols in Northern France as she expects the numbers of immigrants attempting to cross the channel will increase after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban.

       The Home Secretary wants France to go “over and above” funding provided by the UK to tackle the problem.

       A Government source told The Times: “Both the UK and France must do everything within their power to reverse the appalling increase in small boats.

       “We are taking rapid action here at home, with our new plan for immigration and the borders bill cutting down the pull factors but it’s important that France surge their efforts to prevent these dangerous crossings.”

       The UK last month pledged to provide a further ￡54million towards French border controls.

       The extra funding is hoped to prevent further crossings in a year which has seen record numbers of small boat crossings.

       More than 11,000 migrants have attempted the dangerous crossing this year.

       A record 592 people attempted to make the crossing in only a single day last Thursday.

       The UK Border force is expecting this year’s total number of attempted crossings to exceed 22,000 - almost three times as many as last year.

       READ MORE: 'No rules in the EU’ Nigel Farage fumes amid record migrant numbers

       However, the number is significantly less than those attempting to reach Europe across the Mediterranean.

       Speaking to Express.co.uk, Dr Joseph Downing, a fellow in Nationalism at the London School of Economics, said Ms Patel is facing a problem she “can’t fix”.

       He said: “The problem with the current situation is that you don’t reduce labour migration, you just create a strata of illegal migrants.

       “And that’s what I think is going to happen. You’re not going to stop people from Romania or Bulgaria coming to work in agriculture, they’ll just come here illegally.

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       “They’ll [migrants] come here for lower pay, working in worse conditions and Priti Patel talks about clamping on migration to combat all the worst crime and people smuggling is total rubbish.”

       He added: “Effectively what she’s doing by pushing this migration underground, is strengthening those in organised crime and people smuggling.”