UK Urges Joint Channel Patrols, Threatens To Send Boats Back

Britain on Thursday pressed France to allow the deployment of UK police officers along its Channel coast after a deadly tragedy at sea saw 27 people drown, and also refused to rule out pushing migrant boats back

London, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Nov, 2021 ) :Britain on Thursday pressed France to allow the deployment of UK police officers along its Channel coast after a deadly tragedy at sea saw 27 people drown, and also refused to rule out pushing migrant boats back.

Although Paris has previously rebuffed the offer of joint police and border patrols in northern France, interior minister Priti Patel renewed it in telephone talks with French counterpart Gerald Darmanin.

The call was part of a flurry of emergency contacts between the two countries, a day after at least 27 migrants drowned off France during an attempted Channel crossing on a vessel likened by French officials to a children's inflatable pool.

"Yesterday was the moment that many of us have feared for many years," Patel told MPs.

The government has come under fierce pressure from right-wing media to get a grip on the crisis after failing for months to stem a record tide of people crossing from France on small boats.

"We urge them (France) to take these offers forward. We need to deploy every tool we have to save lives," added Patel, whose own parents fled persecution in Uganda in the 1960s.

But the home secretary also refused to rule out turning migrant boats back across the Channel, under new legislation currently progressing through parliament, in a step that potentially would place Britain in breach of international human rights law.

"I have already approved maritime tactics, including boat turnarounds for Border Force," she said.

She added that UK police were "taking action at every level to take down the people-smuggling gangs".

But while Patel insisted the new immigration bill would help address the crisis, she said "we cannot do it alone", appealing for a "coordinated international effort" across Europe.

- Blame game - The blame-game intensified with Britain's biggest-selling tabloid newspapers on Thursday all carrying a front-page picture of a French police vehicle apparently sitting idly by as migrants entered the waters off northern France.

The UK government has extended 54 million ($72 million, 64 million Euros) in financial support to help French authorities combat the crossings before migrants reach UK waters.

But it has made its frustration clear with Paris that so many are still getting across, as local authorities in southeast England struggle to cope with the logistics of so many new arrivals.

More than 25,700 people have made the cross-Channel journey in small boats this year -- three times the total for the whole of 2020, according to data compiled by Britain's PA news agency.

Bruno Bonnell, a lawmaker representing French President Emmanuel Macron's party, said he is not opposed to the UK helping police the French border, despite concerns in Paris over the infringement of national sovereignty.

"As long as it is really a common operation and not a way to twist information once more, pretending that the French people are turning their eyes off those long-boat departures," he told BBC radio.

But Calais lawmaker Pierre-Henri Dumont said the calls for increased patrols on French beaches were a "crazy solution" to the migrant crisis.

"It's time for both our governments to stop blaming each other and to try and talk to each other and find real solutions," he told BBC television.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson also pointed a finger at France after phone talks with Macron late 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," he said.