Brexit campaign leader Nigel Farage has demanded the Government “stands up to the EU and to France” to bring the Channel migrant crisis under control
The Leave Means Leave co-chairman and former UKIP chief urged Home Secretary Sajid Javid to “ignore the civil service, the free movement lobby, and the EU itself and get a grip on this migrant crisis [to] do something to restore public confidence in politicians” in a Telegraph article.
Javid has so far resisted calls to deploy more of Britain’s tiny fleet of Border Force cutters — which the agency’s union warns are “woefully inadequate” — to patrol the English Channel, suggesting that, paradoxically, this could actually incentivise more migrants to launch themselves across the sea on small boats and stolen fishing vessels.
This has left members of the public who do not understand why illegal migrants intercepted at sea would not simply be taken back across the water to France — but, though this is seldom mentioned, this is near-impossible under Brussels regulations.
These typically require EU member-states receiving illegal migrants to deport them to the first EU country they entered rather than the last one they were in — and, if this cannot be determined, they are usually stuck with them.
As long as the United Kingdom submits to this regime, Javid may be right that more Border Force cutters could be a “pull factor” for more migrant boats. As in the Mediterranean, people-smugglers could save on fuel by only using enough to reach the cutters rather than the English coast — knowing their wards would be taken the rest of the way by the hapless British authorities.
Farage noted that the Home Office have refused to say exactly how many illegal migrants have arrived, and has been conspicuously silent on whether any have been removed.
“All anybody knows for certain is that several hundred people have crossed the Channel and made it to Britain since November… how can we really know who they are or what their true motivation for coming to the UK is?” he asked.
“Anybody who disagrees with me might like to recall that five of the eight terrorists who murdered 130 people and injured another 413 people in Paris in November 2015 entered the EU illegally via the Mediterranean… [ISIS] itself has said it would exploit the migrant crisis to flood our continent with half a million Islamic extremists.
“The first duty of the British government is to protect its citizens. In this age of random terrorist atrocities, it cannot afford to take any chances when it comes to meeting this responsibility,” he added.
“At the very start of the Mediterranean migrant crisis in 2015, I told Jean Claude Juncker, the EU Commission President, that he should examine how the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott had dealt with a similar seaborne invasion of Australia,” the veteran MEP added.
Mr Abbott put an end to people-smugglers bringing illegal migrants to Australia on dangerously unseaworthy vessels by issuing a blanket ban on asylum for anyone arriving by sea, with would-be claimants either turned around in the water or processed in third countries and, if found to be legitimate refugees, settled in safe countries in Asia.
“Sajid Javid must make it crystal clear that any individual who crosses the Channel by dinghy and illegally enters British waters will not be allowed to stay in our country, just as Tony Abbott did,” Farage demanded.