Ms Patel also insisted that plans to create offshore processing centres where migrants reaching the UK would be flown remained “on the table” with other countries, despite their rejection by Albanian ministers.

The plan for offshore processing hubs is modelled on Australia’s use of the Pacific island of Nauru for migrants, and will be designed to deter crossings by flying migrants offshore within seven days of their arrival. 

The plan will be enacted as part of the Government Nationality and Borders Bill which aims to overhaul what Ms Patel describes as the UK’s “broken” asylum system.

She admitted the controversial “push back” policy for Border Force officers on jet skis to turn back small boats would not “stop” the migration. She warned there was “no silver bullet”, adding: “no single country can fix this on their” own.

“We have to work together – the UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and most countries in the EU, people coming from other routes,” she said. 

Recriminations were also hurled within the EU on Thursday over Germany’s decision to limit the bloc’s retaliatory sanctions against Belarus over the authoritarian regime’s “hybrid war” tactics of encouraging migrants to mass on the Polish border.

While some European capitals, including eastern states, expressed frustration over the robustness of the EU’s policy, Mr Wallace met with his Polish counterpart Mariusz Błaszczak and agreed to step up Britain’s efforts bolstering Warsaw.

Mr Wallace told The Telegraph he had offered to help Poland by sending more troops because in “‘unconventional’ warfare, you have to stand together on these things. You can’t just let your adversary pick you off one by one”.