Channel migrant crossing - latest: UK officials head to France as PM sets out five urgent steps to ease crisis
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Your support makes all the difference.UK government officials and law enforcement are preparing to head to France for talks amid the migrant crossing crisis.
Reports differ as to whether they are travelling there this evening or tomorrow.
Home secretary Priti Patel is set to travel to France on Sunday for discussions after at least 27 people died yesterday crossing the English Channel on a flimsy overcrowded dinghy that capsized.
Boris Johnson has urged his French counterpart to work with the UK on five steps to ease the migrant crisis – including the “swift” return of asylum seekers who cross the Channel in small boats.
He called on French president Emmanuel Macron to help establish “joint patrols to prevent more boats from leaving French beaches”.
The PM also urged him to help deploy “more advanced technology, like sensors and radar” and – the third step – “airborne surveillance”.
Mr Johnson called for “better real-time intelligence-sharing to deliver more arrests and prosecutions on both sides of the Channel”
The fifth step he outlined in a post on Twitter was to work on “a bilateral returns agreement with France, alongside talks to establish a UK-EU returns agreement” to return migrants who cross the Channel in dinghys and small boats.
He said this would “immediately” and “significantly” reduce the numbers of people who “put their lives in the hands of traffickers”.
Follow our live coverage below
‘Sombre’ mood in Calais where people share stories of hopes to reach UK
Our reporter Zoe Tidman reports from Calais, where she is helping a charity hand out food and drinks to people there.
One worker told The Independent the mood was “sombre”.
There are a lot migrants from Sudan here, amid reports about the nationalities of the 27 killed last night.
One man said he has been trying to settle in Europe for seven years, and has already been to Sweden and Germany but was rejected. He added he wanted to go to the UK now “because I’ve got nowhere else to go”.
Another person said they wanted to go to England “because everything is good in England”.
Meanwhile, one said he tried every day to cross over on a lorry. No luck yet, though.
Watch: Patel ‘not achieving anything’ on Channel crossings, says Starmer
Opinion: ‘Using playground politics over Channel tragedy is senseless’
Some smart analysis from our political columnist Andrew Grice now.
The tragic loss of 27 lives in the Channel is a painful reminder of the failure of politicians on both sides of it. Although Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron have slightly softened their usual rhetoric, there is little sign of them finding the common solutions their countries need to prevent a repeat of the disaster.
The tragedy has not ended the pointless blame game over the small boats. Downing Street said the prime minister and French president agreed in their phone call last night on “stepping up joint efforts to prevent these deadly crossings”. But the Elysee Palace said Macron urged Johnson to stop “politicising” the crisis for “domestic gain”. In turn, UK sources accused Macron of “playing politics with people’s lives.”
Post-Brexit tensions are a barrier to co-operation. The UK would like to be able to return migrants to the EU, as it could - on paper, at least - while it was a member of the bloc. It raised the idea in the Brexit negotiations but there were no takers on the EU side. Macron has accused the UK government of swinging between “partnership and provocation.” UK ministers cite a leaked letter from Jean Castex, the French prime minister, suggesting the EU must make clear that “leaving the union is more damaging than remaining in it”.
Read his thinking in full:
Using playground politics over the tragedy in the Channel is senseless | Andrew Grice
Crossings will not be stopped until the UK reaches a more grown-up relationship with its former EU partners
PM’s Channel remarks ‘disingenuous,’ says human rights lawyer
Let’s get some expert commentary on the Channel migrant tragedy.
Kingsley Napley partner Rebecca Niblock, who is a specialist in international criminal law and human rights, says:
“Boris Johnson’s suggestion that the tragic deaths in the Channel on Wednesday show the necessity of accelerating the measures within the Nationality and Borders Bill is a disingenuous claim.
“As my colleague Elspeth Guild and I have pointed out before, while international law imposes a duty to rescue persons in distress at sea, the nationality and borders bill seeks to provide immunity to those who fail to comply with their duties under international law.
“In practice it will protect Border officials engaged in pushing back boats in the Channel whose actions could result in deaths at sea. Rather than enacting these provisions, the government must provide safe routes for migrants seeking refuge in the UK.”
Reverend issues reminder migrants ‘are not the criminals’
A reverend has made it clear migrants, refugees and asylum seekers should not be viewed as criminals – insisting it is displaced people who have been taken advantage of by the “actual criminals”.
Reverend Dr Jonathan Arnold, director of communities at the Canterbury Diocese, says asylum seekers are often “dealing with absolutely desperate situations”.
He also said they have “have stories of fleeing from situations that would make us horrified”.
Vigils to be held in France for 27 people killed on boat
Vigils will be held across parts of France on Thursday night, honouring the lives of the 27 people who died trying to cross the Channel to Britain on Wednesday night when their boat sank.
Zoe Tidman, reporting from Calais, says churches in northern towns are being encouraged to ring out their bells to coincide with the Calais remembrance gathering at 6.30pm.
Other participating regions include Dunkirk – where the boat left from – at 6pm and Paris’ Place de la Republique at 8pm.
Watch: Why are so many migrants crossing Channel in small boats?
Ministers’ attitudes towards migrants ‘disturbing’ – Phillips
Labour MP Jess Phillips has slammed the government as not caring about migrants crossing the Channel from France.
In writing for The Independent, she says the deaths of 27 people was “predicted by many” and that migrants will continue to attempt to travel to the UK despite ministers’ “flimsy” rhetoric.
She adds that home secretary Priti Patel’s Borders Bill “just allows the government to look tough” and that, if passed, it “won’t stop the boats in the Channel.”
Ms Phillips says: “The solution to the refugee and migrant crisis has got to be found in alliances, diplomacy, investment and aid to enable more people to live the kind of lives elsewhere that we expect in Britain.
“The only way to be tough on migration is to be tough on the root causes of migration.”
Read more here:
I find the government’s attitude to the Channel crisis so disturbing | Jess Phillips
Ministers like Priti Patel talk tough, but achieve so little
Tory peer and former refugee says crisis response ‘shameful’
The UK and France’s response to the migrant crisis has been branded “shameful” by a Tory peer.
Arminka Helic served as a senior adviser to William Hague during his time as foreign secretary.
She had fled to Britain from Bosnia during the 1990s war.
Baroness Helic told Times Radio: “We shouldn’t be having a ding-dong ping-pong with people whose destinies are connected to the most horrible experiences that they would have had and they are looking for a better life or they’re looking simply for safety.”
Read the full report by our political editor Andrew Woodcock
UK approach to small boats crisis branded ‘shameful’ by former Tory adviser
Priti Patel tells MPs: ‘In terms of toughness, I have not ruled anything out’
Man’s body found washed up on beach near Calais
The body of a man who died while crossing the English Channel was found washed up on a beach in France today.
It was found in Sangatte, close to Calais, reports Kent Online.
The news outlet published a photograph of the body wrapped in a white sheet on the back of a specialist off-road vehicle after it was recovered by police and fire crews from the beach.
On Wednesday, at least 27 asylum seekers – 17 men, three children and seven women, one of whom was pregnant – died after an overcrowded dinghy had capsized.
On the same day, fishermen found 15 bodies floating in the Channel.
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