European Union accused of playing politics with migrant crisis by impeding deal with France

The European Union has been accused of playing politics with the migrant crisis by deliberately impeding progress on a potential deal with France.

UK sources claim the European Commission is “turning a blind eye to people dying” by refusing to enter talks to allow Britain to send migrants who have crossed the Channel back to France – blaming “post-Brexit shenanigans”.

EU officials are understood to have insisted that the right to negotiate asylum and readmission agreement rests entirely with the bloc, and not individual member states. A Commission spokesperson told The Telegraph that the post-Brexit trade agreement with the UK “does not include provisions on asylum and return”, and “for the moment, our focus is on its implementation and we are not considering pursuing further negotiations to complement the agreement”.

Tory MPs have said that the only way to end the trade in smuggling migrants across the Channel is to deter migrants by showing they would be turned round and returned at sea, or removed from the UK if they reached its shores.

The number of people making the perilous journey across the Channel in small boats this year has already exceeded 10,000, with 482 people alone crossing on Wednesday.

Last year it was reported that almost 300 migrants had died trying to cross the Channel to the UK since 1999.

A Tory source accused the European Commission of “turning a blind eye to people dying”, while a government source suggested the issue had become embroiled in “post-Brexit shenanigans”.

The Nationality and Borders Bill gives the UK’s Border Force powers to send migrants who have crossed the Channel back to France. But France has so far refused to sign an agreement to take back migrants.

Senior French figures are said to be “nervous” about the EU’s insistence that any such deal can only be struck with the Commission’s agreement. 

Last month, Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, and Gérald Darmanin, her French counterpart, signed an agreement which stated that both countries “support the idea of a UK-EU readmission agreement to mutual advantage in terms of deterring illegal migration, protecting the vulnerable, and tackling the criminal gangs”. 

The provision is believed to have been included as part of a joint effort to pressure the Commission into taking action.