The Conservative Party's Daniel Hannan, who is a British member of the European Parliament, or an MEP, told Fairfax Media Mr Abbott's policy needed to be replicated in the northern hemisphere.

"I think Australia handled that issue with amazing success, there hasn't been a single death by drowning since the boats started being turned back," Mr Hannan said.

"And we need to break the link between getting onto a rickety boat and being allowed to stay in the country destination, it really is that simple."

Asked whether that meant turning back boats, Mr Hannan, a former aide to ex-Foreign secretary.William Hague, said "yes, you have to break that link."

"Europe hasn't started to understand what Australia did," he added.

The UNHCR says there  have been 205, 287 arrivals by sea in 2016 and 1,015,078 people made a voyage in 2015.

2,510 migrants have died or are missing.  79 per cent of all arrivals come from the world's top 10 refugee producing countries with 62 per cent coming from war-torn Syria and Afghanistan.

Mr Hannan said he met Mr Abbott, whom he described as a "great man" who was "badly treated" by his party during the former prime minister's visit to London earlier this year.

It was Mr Abbott's second trip to Britain since his ousting as prime minister. Last October, Mr Abbott delivered the Margaret Thatcher lecture in London. In that speech he urged Europe to study the Australian experience and shut the door to people "no longer fleeing a conflict but seeking a better life."

"This means turning boats around, for people coming by sea... It will require some force," he said.

"It will gnaw at our consciences – yet it is the only way to prevent a tide of humanity surging through Europe and quite possibly changing it forever," Mr Abbott said at the time.

Mr Hannan said the spike in migration to Europe was partly the result of Australia's policy towards asylum seekers.

"One of the reasons why there is the level of migration in Europe there now is because the Australian route was closed off and people from Bangladesh and so on are now coming on the much longer overland route to Europe because that's the alternative to getting into Australia," he said.

Mr Hannan said he was a supporter of "controlled economic migration."

"[But] Are we going to contract that decision out to the people smugglers in the Mediterranean or are we going to have some system that we decide who gets the places?" he said.

Britain's Border Force has ordered extra patrol vessels after two boats were detected trying to reach England by the English Channel.  The most recent boat, carrying 18 Albanians and two Britons who were charged, was picked up off Dymchurch just before midnight on Saturday night.

Immigration Minister James Brokenshire says the UK and French governments are collaborating on "returns" to deter migrants from making the "perilous journey across the Channel."

UKIP's only sitting MP, Douglas Carswell, said while he didn't want to comment specifically on the arrival of the boats, England needed to look to Australia for guidance on the issue.

"Clearly we need to learn the lesson from Australia which is that if you want to stop tragedies at sea you've got to stop the boats," he said.

"I think its been 19 months since a boat landed up in Australia, I think there are lessons for us to learn from Australia but I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon of these particular two boats," Mr Carswell said.

Speaking to the The Conversation's Michelle Grattan on Thursday, Tony Abbott said his government's achievements were a "great record" for the prime minister [Malcolm Turnbull] to build on.

"There's no doubt we can go to the people at this election with a very strong record of achievement," he said.

"The boats are stopped, no-one thought we could do that," Mr Abbott said.

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