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Shadow home secretary Chris Philp has said he was pelted with bottles and had a knife pulled on him while speaking to migrants in a camp in northern France. <\/p>\n
The Conservative MP posted a video<\/a> on social media discussing the incident with Daily Express journalist Zak Garner-Purkis who has accompanied him on his visit to France. <\/p>\n In the clip, Philp says: “I found it pretty shocking – you said behind me somebody had pulled out some sort of machete and we left pretty quickly.”<\/p>\n Mr Garner-Purkis says the man was “swinging it around in the air” adding: “It was, clear he was doing it to send a message to the other people there – whether it was a case of ‘don’t speak’.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In the video, the two men are recounting the incident while walking along the side of a road at which point objects can be seen being thrown at them. <\/p>\n Mr Garner-Purkis says “they are throwing bottles at us” and Philp says: “Right, we’ve got to go.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Philp has said he has been visiting the north coast of France to “find out more about what’s happening on the ground with the illegal migration crisis”.<\/p>\n The number of people trying to get to the UK by crossing the English Channel in small boats has been increasing for around eight years.<\/p>\n Since 2018, when figures were first recorded, more than 170,000 people have arrived in small boats.<\/p>\n In 2022, 45,755 made the journey, in 2024 it was 37,000 and as of 11 August this year, 27,029 people have arrived in the UK.<\/p>\n In a bid to reduce numbers, the Labour government has taken steps to “smash the gangs” that organise crossings including spending \u00a3100m to fund 300 National Crime Agency officers to tackle people-smugglers.<\/p>\n