Home Secretary Priti Patel says the British government will hand the French millions of pounds yet again to try and persuade them to stop boat migrants as a record 600 landed on Monday, pushing the total for the year to over 17,000.
Update: the final figures for Monday’s arrivals are 696 people in 14 boats. The French managed to stop a grand total of one boat with 35 people onboard, according to the BBC’s Simon Jones. This is the highest number of boat migrants in a single day yet.
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Patel, the Conservative (Tory) Member of Parliament (MP) who leads the Home Office — which has broad responsibility for border control, national security, and policing — defended the taxpayer cash giveaway to Emmanuel Macron’s government despite protestations from senior members of her own party, who observe that the Channel migrant crisis has got and is getting progressively worse despite several previous major payouts.
“Until the French intercept the gangs and then detain them… this will not solve the problem. It’s just an extra cost to the taxpayers.” complained Tim Loughton MP, a member of the Home Affairs Committee of the House of Commons, in comments quoted by The Times.
“France has a moral obligation to protect vulnerable people” from potentially deadly exploitation by people-smugglers concurred Natalie Elphicke, MP for the port city of Dover where many migrants end up after landing.
“They should not need to be paid to do their duty,” she added.
The French have only ever stopped a relatively small number of migrant boats attempting to leave their shores for England, and indeed have been caught escorting migrant boats into British waters or handing over migrants to a complicit UK Border Force.
“The UK’s partnership with France in 2022 has resulted in over 13,500 crossing attempts from France being stopped — 60 per cent more than this stage last year — and our joint intelligence and security cell has dismantled 21 organised crime groups involved in trafficking small boats and secured over 500 arrests,” insisted Patel in defence of the plan to hand millions to the French yet again, heedless of the fact that boat migrant crossings are higher than they have ever been.
This reality was brought home on August 1st, when over 600 migrants on roughly a dozen boats were landed on British shores in around 12 hours — a new daily record. This day comes following a busy July — the busiest month of the year for migrant arrivals so far — with 1,000 arrivals last week. At least 17,000 migrants are known to have come to Britain by the Channel boat route so far this year.
It is unknown how much the French will be handed to try and persuade them to control their borders this year, but it comes on top of a £54 million payment in 2021 and a £28 million payment in 2020.
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