It is difficult to grasp a long story if you have a short memory.
The problem with illegal migration across the Channel is almost 25 years old. In that quarter century, Britain and France have often quarrelled. Remember the Sangatte refugee camp? Remember The Jungle?
More often, the two countries have worked together. For 17 years now Britain’s south eastern frontier has been not at Dover or Folkestone but at Calais and Dunkirk — and at the Gare du Nord in Paris.
British Border Force officials check passports on French soil. They also inspect lorries queuing at the French Channel ports. Something like 50,000 people attempting to enter Britain without the right papers are prevented from leaving France each year.
The latest Channel dispute — over a limited but growing number of migrations by small boat — needs to be seen in that context. The Home Secretary Priti Patel is threatening to re-interpret the law of sea to allow Britain to turn back some boats carrying would-be asylum seekers. Her French equivalent, Gérald Darmanin, warns that any “unilateral” act could have “a negative impact” on Franco-British cooperation.
Patel and Darmanin are curiously similar figures. Both are regarded as dangerous hard-liners by the Left in their own countries. Both are themselves from migrant backgrounds — Patel’s family from India via Uganda, Darmanin’s from Algeria and Malta via Tunisia.
The two “interior ministers” should understand one another very well. Darmanin’s blunt letter to Patel this week carried no specific threats but it contained a pointed reminder — Britain will lose more than it gains if it falls out with France on cross-Channel migration.
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SubscribeGood article. Thanks, John Lichfield. If the UK government is serious about reducing the numbers of irregulars crossing the channel, the only serious solution is to reduce the “pull factor”. Blustering at the French government is particularly pointless just now. With an election coming up, Macron would relish the prospect a spat with Les Rosbifs over migration. It would be a most welcome distraction.
Perhaps people are unkind to the guardian et al. They have been telling everyone who will listen that the UK (but above all, England), is a racist dysfunctional hell hole. Oughta do the trick…free copies all round!
I did not read it as I know it would just annoy me. Anything about French Politics, or Illegal immigration, always annoys me…. joining them up? No thanx.
But what I will say is any nation (basically all the West) which has outsourced its immigration policy to People Smuggling Criminal Cartels is INSANE.
What seems to be overlooked in this article is that the battle (yes, it is a war against invaders) is already lost by the time these invaders get to France, or really anywhere in Europe. Many do-gooders, especially “white saviors” are really people smugglers who are a vital part of the illegal immigration chain. Europe needs to seriously “harden the target” and embrace a zero tolerance policy. Doesn’t biology teach that invasive species are dangerous, often fatal to the local flora and fauna? Think pythons in the Everglades.
Should the immigration policies of the EU be determined by the people of Europe through their elected representatives, or should the policy be solely determined by invading hordes through sheer numbers? Aren’t these invaders “required” to register and seek asylum in the first country they reach? Don’t they often express contempt for EU laws by saying–Go to hell, I have a cousin in Germany and I’m not going to cooperate with you at all–no passport, no identification, no name–until I get to Germany?
Harden the target. Zero tolerance. Turn back the invaders in EVERY case!
‘Aren’t these invaders “required” to register and seek asylum in the first country they reach?’
Unfortunately, that was the Dublin Convention, which applied to us before Brexit. We’re a third country now.
You must remember that property developers donate good money to the Tories. If our population didn’t rise every year, what would housebuilders do?
Just. Reduce. The. Pull. Factor.
Just deport, next day.
Not so fast. The French won’t accept them.
Their country of origin is not obvious if they’ve destroyed any documents they may have had.
Deport wither?
Third party… Lots of places will hold them till they give the truth of where they belong. Australia did this with good success.
Tony Abbott did that, but he’s not standing for election in the UK. Out of Lib, Lab or Con, who would do such a thing?
None of them.