Mark Francois said the Irish government 'are now hoisted by their own petard' (Image: GB NEWS)

       Tory MP Mark Francois hit out at the Irish government in a row over migrants.

       The Irish government claimed the number of asylum seekers crossing from Northern Ireland has gone up since the Rwanda Bill was passed and proposed new legislation to make it easier to send migrants to the UK.

       But Mr Francois, who chairs the European Research Group of backbench Conservative Brexiteers, told GB News: “The Irish government are now hoisted by their own petard.

       "The stench of hypocrisy over this is worse than a 10-year-old pint of Guinness that's gone off.

       "I mean, I remember all the way through what I call the Battle of Brexit in the House of Commons, being told night after night, week after week, including by people quoting the Irish government and then seeing it in clips from Dublin - No hard border on the island of Ireland under any circumstances.

       READ MORE: Rishi Sunak tells EU and Ireland 'no' in migrant returns row

       “Complete free movement across that border. And there was a loophole, which was known as the Dublin Convention.

       “So now to have the Irish government squealing that these rules are against their national interest when they are the people that argued for them for years, you couldn't make it up.

       “Micheál Martin, at the time of all these arguments was the Taoiseach, the Prime Minister of Ireland. He's now the foreign minister and he said last week that 80% of asylum seekers arriving in Ireland, in the Republic, have come from Northern Ireland because of, his words, the Rwanda effect.

       “Here’s the man who a few years ago was saying, under no circumstances could there be any kind of border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, now complaining bitterly about what he calls the Rwanda effect.

       “Now, that would seem to imply that at least in the Republic of Ireland, that legislation is now starting to have a material effect.

       "And don't forget the European People's Party, the EPP, Ursula von der Leyen and all of those. David Cameron took our MEPs out, I was the project manager for that when I was the shadow Europe Minister.

       “The EPP, in their manifesto for the European elections, are now apparently saying, ‘we want to implement the concept of safe third countries.’

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       "This is the European People's Party who of course were desperately in favour of Theresa May’s original deal.

       “So the whole world tonight is kind of spinning through 180 degrees.

       “The government said repeatedly, you should not be able to come into the United Kingdom legally and be able to stay. So the Rwanda scheme has always been designed as a deterrent.

       "Here's the irony, that a government in the Republic who argued for years for no kind of border control at all are the people that are now telling us in London, that it does have a deterrent effect and they don't like it.

       “It’s absolutely true that I and some of my colleagues had concerns about the absolute legal technicalities of the bill, and we'll see how that plays through.

       “But it does seem that the overall scheme, and now we have the bill has become an act, despite the House of Lords, that it is beginning to have an effect. And don't take it from me as the chairman of the European Research Group, take it from the foreign minister of the Republic of Ireland. History appears to have moved on a bit.”

       Rishi Sunak has rejected the idea of accepting the return of asylum seekers from Ireland.

       The Prime Minister said he was "not interested" in any sort of returns deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had crossed the English Channel from France.

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