Sir Keir Starmer said the UK should make its own deal with the EU to send migrants back to their home countries.
The government has claimed Labour’s returns policy could lead to the UK taking 100,000 illegal migrants a year.
But Sir Keir told the BBC’s Mark Easton that was “embarrassing nonsense”, because Labour would not sign up to any deal that involved sharing asylum seekers as if the UK was still a member of the EU.