Rupert Lowe, the MP for Great Yarmouth, has posted details of the incident on Facebook, saying he is “staggered” by the incompetence it highlights.

He said the man, understood to be a Libyan national, had been spotted in a small boat 18 miles off the Norfolk coast, three days after leaving the Netherlands, around 110 miles away.

He was brought ashore at Caister by a Norfolk lifeboat.

Rupert Lowe, MP for Great Yarmouth (Image: Rupert Lowe)

The incident comes amid growing concern that migrants are making increasingly lengthy trips across the sea to the UK, rather than concentrating their efforts on the relatively narrow Dover Straits.

At the weekend, a boat of around 120 migrants arrived in Portsmouth having set off from Normandy, a distance of around 70 miles.

In his post, Mr........

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