Controversial author Douglas Murray has blasted "hypocrites" such as Lily Allen and Nicola Sturgeon in an extraordinary interview with Julia Hartley-Brewer.

With new figures from the United Nations suggesting the migrant crisis has reached a new pitch, Murray, author of The Strange Death of Europe, also says we need to get a grip on the situation and stop letting migrants into our continent until we know who they are.

The latest figures suggest the number of people entering Europe is continuing to rise, with more than 9,000 people having arrived in Spain from north Africa this year.

Murray said that, while most ordinary people in Britain and elsewhere in Europe are sick of the situation, high-profile people in politics and the media are exploiting the situation for their own personal profile.

"This has provided a magnificent opportunity for pseuds and hypocrites and grandstanders to have their moment," he told Julia.

"The SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said she would even take in some migrants. That was two years ago and she doesn't seem to have her family of migrants.

"Labour MPs - Yvette Cooper said she'd take in a family of migrants. Endless people... none of them have got them. Lily Allen has still not got her group of young men from sub-Saharan Africa living in their spare room.

"These people are grandstanding on a massive scale about a continent-wade catastrophe and they should feel enormous shame if they could.

"We have to look at the whole problem in its totality. The point is 'can we take in all of the world who wants to come to our continent. If you ask a grandstander like Lily Allen or Nicola Sturgeon or Yvette Cooper, they will not, when put on the spot, say 'keep anyone out.' They can't.

"In reality, if we followed the advice of these people, we'd destroy our entire society. [Unlike the majority of people] the people who have a voice in the media and our politicians who are insane."

Murray also said most of the current influx of migrants are actually sub-Sarahan African men, rather than refugees from war-torn areas like Syria, and "they haven't been rescued. they've been picked up by our own continent's vessels, by organised vessels paid for by taxpayers across our continent, and by NGO vessels.

"They are complicit with the traffickers, they are paying the traffickers, they are involved in an illegal business. they are paying to illegally enter our continent, to break outr own rules.

"We do actually have rules on how you claim asylum and it doesn't involve paying a criminal gang to enter Europe."

"we are lifting people from Africa and bringing them into Europe with no idea of who they are or whether they have any legitimate claim to be in Europe."

Murray also cited an extract from his book, documenting the policy of Australia to turn around migrant boats or turn them towards other countries, as an example to follow.

"We do not work out who is in our continent once they are in," he said. "We work out who people are, what their claims are, and keep them outside Europe in the process. Keep them in North Africa.

"This is a catastrophe down the road. If we don’t maintain our laws, everyone will break them for us."

Listen above.