UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has accused France of not doing enough to stop migrants from trying to get to the UK from northern France, after a boat capsized in the Channel, killing 31 people on Wednesday.
“We’ve had difficulties persuading some of our partners, particularly the French, to do things in a way that we think the situation deserves,” Johnson told broadcasters. He said the UK is willing to provide more support to help France patrol its northern beaches to prevent boats leaving.
More than 25,000 people are estimated to arrived in the UK in small boats this year, about three times as many as in 2020. Johnson faces intense pressure to halt the dangerous crossings, which line the pockets of people smugglers.
Yet Johnson’s comments risk angering France at a sensitive time in their post-Brexit relationship, which has been strained by tensions on a range of issues from defence to the granting of fishing licences.
Unless they are shown that their business model won’t work, that they can’t simply get people over the Channel from France to the UK, they will continue to deceive people, to put people’s lives at risk and, as I say, to get away with murder.
— UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson
In its own response to the tragedy, the French government focused on the human suffering, with President Emmanuel Macron saying his government “will never let the Channel become a cemetery”. Interior minister Gérald Darmanin said the smugglers who organise crossings bear “the primary responsibility” and that France is working hard to curb illegal migration.
Speaking to reporters outside a hospital in Calais, Darmanin said that five women and a child were among the dead. Two people survived and one is missing.
While most migrants typically try to reach the UK in the summer, this year they continued into the colder months with gangs operating cut-price journeys by overcrowding the boats, according to the UK’s National Crime Agency.
Macron called for an immediate reinforcement of Frontex, the EU’s border force, as well as an urgent meeting of EU ministers tasked with migration issues.
“We must accelerate the dismantling of criminal networks between the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany,” he said.
Those who cannot afford the fees charged by criminal gangs are using kayaks and paddling pools, and some have even tried to swim the 34km across the narrowest part of the Channel, which is the world’s busiest shipping lane.
“It serves as the starkest possible reminder of the dangers of these Channel crossings organised by ruthless criminal gangs,” Johnson said. “Unless they are shown that their business model won’t work, that they can’t simply get people over the Channel from France to the UK, they will continue to deceive people, to put people’s lives at risk and, as I say, to get away with murder.”
Home secretary Priti Patel has come under particular scrutiny in the UK. When the government set up a cross-government review of the issue under cabinet minister Steve Barclay, it was widely interpreted in Westminster as evidence that the prime minister was losing patience — though Johnson’s spokesperson denied that this week.
In parliament on Monday, opposition Labour Party spokesperson Nick Thomas-Symonds accused Patel of “empty rhetoric and broken promises”. He said the UK had spent £200m (R4.2bn) on deals with the French government to try to stem the flow of migrants to little effect.
Patel said her planned immigration legislation would “make life harder for the criminal gangs behind these crossings” and strengthen the powers of border authorities to break up their business model.
The UK argues that asylum seekers should seek refuge in the first safe country they come to such as France, Italy or Greece — and not attempt to reach Britain. Patel said that, according to French authorities, 70% of people entering France and northern France in particular and crossing the Channel are single men and economic migrants rather than refugees.
About 62% of claimants who enter the asylum system in the UK have arrived illegally, according to the Home Office. France’s Darmanin said this month that Britain’s labour laws need an overhaul to prevent the flow of migrants.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
— Bloomberg
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