Illegal immigration 'more serious that EU immigration'

Illegal immigration is a more serious problem than immigration from the EU, Gordon Brown has said.

In an interview with the BBC's Today programme, the former prime minister pointed out that countries outside the EU such as Norway and Switzerland have higher rates of immigration.

"If you look at the actual figures themselves, then 500,000 of the people you classify as Europeans coming into Britain are Irish citizens," he said. "Nobody wants to exclude the Irish citizens from Great Britain.

"The real problem we are dealing with, and the biggest problem, is illegal immigration. When you saw these Albanians coming into the country, that wasn’t Europeans trying to get in by right. That was illegal immigrants driven by gang masters, driven by traffickers, criminal gangs."