Brexit leader Nigel Farage reported on Saturday that an entire boat of illegal migrants tested positive for the Chinese coronavirus after being escorted into British territorial waters by the French Navy.
Mr Farage claimed that he received a tip-off from Dover, informing him that at least forty migrants have crossed the English Channel on Saturday morning. By the end of Saturday, a total of 87 detected boat migrants had been landed on England’s southern coast.
On one of the boats, all twelve illegals tested positive for the coronavirus, Farage reported. The Daily Mail reported comments by the Home Office which contradicted those claims, however, noting that just one migrant tested positive on Saturday.
The Reform UK party leader noted that coronavirus cases in the migrant hotspot of Dunkirk, France are amongst the highest in the country. He went on to point out that while coronavirus cases have been falling in Kent as a whole, the Dover area — where migrants are typically brought ashore in the UK — is seeing a spike in cases.
“We have given the French government another £28 million to stop these migrant boats from coming and yet, this week the French navy is still escorting these vessels across into British waters,” Farage told TalkRadio on Saturday.
“We are literally paying the French to now import COVID into the United Kingdom at the same time we are being told by [Health Secretary] Matt Hancock to stay home and I think that is outrageous,” he said.
Mr Farage went on to malign the disparity in treatment for those arriving legally by air, who are forced to pay the government £1,750 to stay in a quarantine hotel, in comparison to illegal migrants, who are housed at taxpayer expense.
“If you are worried about coming into Britain, just come by dinghy, the sea is dead flat, it is very safe today and you won’t get charged anything for your hotel,” Farage joked.
“Once again last week we get [Immigration Minister] Chris Philp and [Home Secretary] Priti Patel does it every few months, they give the big speech, how we are going to stop it all from happening, we are going to turn the boats around, it’s all going to end and I think they do it just to calm down the backbenchers,” he added.
On Friday an additional 33 illegal migrants were brought ashore at the Port of Dover, with the Home Office claiming that French authorities stopped a further eleven from crossing, according to BBC reporter Simon Jones.
Despite promises from Home Secretary Priti Patel that the government would “crackdown” on illegal boat migration following Brexit, the waves of migrants in the first two months of the year has remained on par with last year’s record numbers.
Between Monday and Tuesday, some 126 illegal aliens were brought ashore in the UK, bringing the total number of crossings since Britain’s official departure from the European Union to over 400.
The issue of the French navy escorting migrants across the English Channel was first highlighted by Mr Farage in May of last year when he filmed the French handover migrants to the British authorities. Mr Farage’s findings were later confirmed by Breitbart London through the use of transponder data from ships in the English Channel to confirm the meeting of the two craft.
Aside from failing to stop the French from bringing migrants across the Channel, the British government has yet to sign a deal with the European Union or any member state on the return of failed asylum seekers. Last year, the number of foreign criminals deported by the Home Office fell by 79 per cent.
While Prime Minister Boris Johnson has pledged to “take back control” of the country’s borders, the nominally Conservative government has also refrained from implementing a turn back the boats approach like that taken by Australia, which has effectively cut off illegal boat migration through its Operation Sovereign Borders policy.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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