Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said it was ‘disgraceful’ that nearly 1,200 people crossed the Channel in small boats on Saturday as she called on France to bring in new rules to intercept vessels in shallow water
Yvette Cooper has called on French authorities to urgently change the law to stop small boats launching.
The Home Secretary said it was “disgraceful and unacceptable” that 1,194 migrants had arrived in 18 boats on Saturday. She told MPs: “Criminal gangs will likely have made millions of points this weekend alone.
“The gangs are increasingly operating a model where boats are launched from further along the coast and people climb in from the water, exploiting French rules that have stopped their police taking any action in the sea.
“This is completely unacceptable.” Ms Cooper said the previous government had tried to get France to change its rules for several years to no avail.
But she said she has been in talks with her French counterparts and President Emmanuel Macron’s cabinet had accepted it needs to act. The UK is pushing for French police to intervene and stop boats in shallow water amid concerns too little is being done to stop vessels launching.
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It comes after Keir Starmer said the public has “every right to be angry” about small boats crossing the English Channel. He wrote on social media: “You have every right to be angry about small boat crossings. I’m angry too. We are ramping up our efforts to smash the people smuggling gangs at source.”
Speaking in Glasgow, he said the Government has a “duty” to stop the crossings. Saturday’s crossings brought the number of migrants known to have crossed the Channel this year to 14,811.
This is 42% higher than the same point last year. Earlier Éléonore Anne-Marie Caroit, deputy of the French national assembly, said Britain appears like an “El Dorado” – the mythical city of gold in South America – for migrants.
But she denied that France was failing to stop the problem, saying the two nations must stop blaming each other. Ms Caroit said the UK has suffered as a result of Brexit, with the UK no longer able to return people to the EU under the Dublin Regulations – a key agreement between European nations.
She told the BBC: “The numbers have been increasing since Brexit after the UK is no longer part of the Dublin Regulation and has a very weak asylum policy.” This made it easier to return migrants with no right to be in the UK, she said.
The French politician said: “It’s a complex situation, people want simple solutions, but you have to go to Calais and see what it looks like, and how many small boats you have and how many people are waiting to go to the UK.
“So, of course, there is a part that can be improved in France, and we’re working towards that. But I also think the UK needs to take responsibility, because it is so attractive on these migrant routes today, and we actually need to work together instead of blaming each other.”