Priti Patel orders inquiry after Border Force vessel brings migrants from French waters to UK

British boats should not be venturing into French waters to pick up migrants crossing the Channel, a border force union chief has suggested. 

Priti Patel has ordered an investigation after a Border Force vessel went into French waters to pick up Channel migrants and brought them back to Dover.

The small boat on which the migrants had been travelling is understood to have been zig-zagging between UK waters and French waters at the time. 

It was not, however, thought to have been in any kind of trouble when the Border Force cutter Valiant radioed French authorities requesting permission to intervene. 

On Saturday, Lucy Moreton, from the Immigration Services Union, said the British crew should have only intervened if there was an obvious danger to life.

“It certainly does happen that where there is a threat to life at sea, the French vessels simply keep eye contact with the migrant vessel into British waters and we then pick it up,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. 

“What’s being reported appears to be that someone had just anticipated that, but had they waited a little bit longer, the migrant vessel would have crossed that line and they would have picked them up anyway.”

A recording of a maritime radio conversation captured officers discussing the “legality” of the operation. 

The UK’s 140ft cutter Valiant then heads over to the French side of the Channel and launches a fast inflatable boat to collect the dinghy migrants and take them to Dover.

Ms Moreton said of the decision to cross into French waters: “That shouldn’t happen, it is a notional line in the sea of course but it’s as much a border as any other and if the vessel crossed into French water it appears to have done so with permission, but it wouldn’t be appropriate.”

The move will intensify pressure on the Home Office in a week when record numbers of migrants have crossed the Channel.  

The previous day – Friday, May 28 – was the busiest of the year so far, with 336 migrants sailing the 21 miles to the UK from the north French coast.  

Tory MPs have criticised the French for shepherding migrants boats into British waters to maintain safety at sea, but the apparent tacit acceptance by Border Force of similar tactics will be an embarrassment for the Home Secretary.

Currently, France will intervene only if migrants ask for help. In May last year, Ms Patel asked her Paris counterpart to agree to more interception in French waters – and even to accept vessels that were turned around in UK waters.   However, no deal was reached and instead the UK handed France £28 million for extra beach patrols. 

Ms Moreton said: “What I’m told by members who are involved in this is that it is quite common when the migrant boats are approached by the French that they threaten to jump overboard or throw somebody overboard if the French vessel comes close and the French vessel stands off because life at sea is paramount.

“That is what leads to this rather unattractive appearance that the French are escorting the migrant vessel into British waters. 

“Once they see a British vessel, they’re quite happy to be taken onboard because they know at that point they’re as good as here.”

This year the number of arrivals expected to reach the south coast from France will far outstrip last year’s 8,400 if current rates continue. Since the start of this year more than 4,300 have reached the UK, including 1,058 in the past seven days.   

The radio conversation took place on open frequencies between British and French officers.  At one point, the officer on the French vessel Athos says: “We give you legality to do this, no problem.”   

Ship tracking charts show that just 23 minutes later, the Valiant moved over the international sea border into French territorial waters.   

It launches a fast inflatable craft to bring the migrants back to the Valiant, and then to Dover. At no stage did the French crew, who had been tracking the migrant boat for hours, suggest the vessel was in difficulties – and only referred to its progress being ‘slow’.   

Therefore, it is claimed the Border Force’s incursion into French waters was not an emergency lifesaving mission.