Comment

Saving two migrants in the Channel has only confirmed to me the folly of the Government's approach

Winter has arrived but there are no signs of the smuggling gangs letting up. We need a more robust approach to protecting Britain's borders

Another joint declaration on illegal immigration has just been announced between the British Home Secretary, Priti Patel, and the French Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin. Yet despite the optimistic tone of this £28 million agreement, not a lot in it sounded new. Last year, the British public was assured that illegal crossings in the English Channel would cease; this year more than 8,500 illegal immigrants – a record number – have been recorded arriving at the Port of Dover alone. (These are just the people we know about. There are doubtless hundreds – maybe thousands – more who have sneaked into the country undetected). It’s fair to say most Britons are fed up of the Government’s appalling failure to protect our borders. Patience has worn thin.

From what I witnessed in the Channel on Sunday morning, it’s not just the volume of those making the journey across this treacherous stretch of water that alarms voters, bringing with them a host of expensive practical problems that must be paid for by hard-pressed taxpayers. It’s also the sense that a major tragedy is sure to occur sooner or later. Sadly, some immigrants are known to have died already while making the journey.  

This latest injection of £28 million of public money is to be given to the French authorities to beef up patrols along the French coastline, from which the people-smuggling networks launch inflatable boats headed for England at a cost of thousands of pounds per head. With some pride and, to be fair, with some justification, it is said that 60 per cent of these launches were stopped over the last few weeks. That is all well and good, but the bigger problem is that more and more people want to come to soft-touch Britain. The expectation of the life on offer has reached the point where some who arrived this year have been protesting angrily about the conditions of the former army barracks where they are being held. These people have claimed asylum in Britain having supposedly fled war-torn countries, yet some seem to think that they can automatically move into their own room in a four-star hotel. They represent a very different kind of asylum seeker to those who have come before them.

In any case, with over 100 miles of beaches and vast areas of sand dunes to monitor, I am not confident that this latest agreement – which promises to double the number of French police deployed on these duties – will suffice. If it is to mean anything at all, I believe there will have to be another joint declaration in which the UK promises France even more money.

A familiar theme within the latest announcement was the boast that the latest surveillance technology will be used including drones, radar equipment, cameras and optronic binoculars. This caused me to scratch my head because drones, RAF aircraft, helicopters, radar and even heat-seeking equipment are already used in the Channel. In any case, all of this is irrelevant to another major cause of the surge in numbers arriving in Britain.

The fact is, once a boat carrying illegal immigrants has been launched from France, the French Navy simply escorts it into UK waters, where UK Border Force officials and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) then act as a taxi service, collecting and processing the new arrivals. Unless and until Britain refuses to receive those who cross via this route on the basis that at least 80 per cent of them do not even qualify for asylum, people will continue to come. 

Although winter has arrived and the weather is more changeable, there is no sign of the smuggling gangs letting up. On Sunday morning, a friend invited me out fishing. Conditions were worse than forecast and pretty choppy. Five miles out, we spotted a small vessel. It was a cheap inflatable kayak with two occupants on board. They had given up rowing. As we approached them, I could see one of them was in a bad way. They were extremely relieved to see us as there was not another vessel in sight. In their excitement, their little craft capsized.

A few pretty desperate minutes followed. Luckily, the tide was at slack water. Despite our best efforts, my friend and I could not pull the young men over the gunwhales of the boat and they lacked sufficient strength in their legs to assist. We managed to get them both back into the kayak and waited for help. After some time, and having given them cups of hot coffee, the RNLI arrived and they were saved. If we had not had been there, they would not have lasted long. They had been out at sea since the previous afternoon and hypothermia cannot have been far off. 

These two young men from Mali were lucky, but I predict many others will perish in the months to come. No agreement with any French minister will stop this cruel trade. In fact, it appears it may get worse. One of the new ideas that came from last week’s agreement was the provision of better reception centres at Calais as opposed to the makeshift camps that exist currently. This will merely heighten the problem by attracting greater numbers of illegal immigrants to the French coast from where they will be tempted to Britain by the people traffickers. 

Priti Patel has promised new legislation to tackle the immigrant crisis in 2021, but the question must be asked: will she even be in post next year? Rumours swirl suggesting that she is not long for the Home Office. If Britain is to control this problem for once and for all, there is only one way to do so. The time has come to adopt the measures used by Australia and turn the boats back.  

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