A British think tank has accused the UK Home Office of attempting to cover up the number of migrant crossings of the English Channel and has launched a petition to keep the daily figures public.
Migration Watch UK, which advocates against mass migration to Britain, has launched a petition to demand the government continue publishing daily updates on Channel crossings, with some 7,472 signing the petition so far. Should the petition reach 10,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament.
In January, amid record numbers of illegal migrants flooding across the Channel, reports emerged that Priti Patel’s Home Office was planning on scrapping the daily reporting of migrant arrival in favour of a quarterly reporting scheme. The plan has drawn widespread criticism, with opponents claiming the government is trying to avoid the bad press suffered upon each arrival.
Speaking to Breitbart, executive director of Migration Watch UK, Dr Ben Greening said: “Hiding the daily boat arrival numbers from the public in the midst of rocketing illegal crossings is a desperate move. The politicians and civil servants who helped enable this deadly mess to grow are clearly afraid that people will see the facts for what they are.”
“Those in power are making a last-ditch bid to dodge responsibility. Please sign and share our petition as widely as possible to send a clear, unmistakable message that this is simply not acceptable in a democracy. We, the public, demand the truth,” Dr Greening added.
While the think tank accused the coverup of already taking place, the Home Office told Breitbart that there is “no basis” to the claims and that the figures are still publicly available. After a record January, in which over 1,300 landed compared to 223 last year, there were curiously no crossings for two weeks.
The sudden lull was blamed on windy weather conditions, and the Home Office did report that eleven migrants landed in Britain on Saturday. It is not clear, however, how much longer the data will be made available to news outlets.
The government has been warned that as many as 65,000 could land this year, nearly double last year’s record of 28,400. However, some, including Brexit’s Nigel Farage have said that the country could see as many as 80,000 arrive if the government fails to act.
The Royal Navy has been tasked with coordinating the migrant crisis in the coming months, yet, the branch of the armed service has reportedly baulked at any notion of actually turning back the boats to France.
Commenting on the scale of the issue Dr Ben Greening told Breitbart: “Our unique Channel Tracking Station has, over nearly two years since the late Spring of 2020, helped to reveal the government’s sheer incompetence as reported arrivals by dinghy rose an astonishing 95-fold between 2018 and 2021.”
“The debacle in the Channel has seen the UK become a powerful magnet for Europe’s failed asylum claimants, who are coming here as a last resort from safe places, with many destroying their identification on the way. This is a public safety nightmare because it’s impossible to properly vet who is coming in.”
The Migration Watch director added: “The fact that the hard-pressed, taxpaying public is forking out through the nose for what has largely become a ferry service to the UK, as well as many millions for people to stay in hotels and for an overwhelmed, chaotic and abused asylum system, means that it is all the more urgent for us to know what is really happening.”
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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