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Channel migrant crossings into Britain hit new record

Patel criticised as 280 sail over in a day
Migrant Channel crossing incidents
Migrants come ashore at Dungeness in Kent yesterday after being picked up in the Channel by a lifeboat. MPs backed new laws to clamp down on people smuggling
GARETH FULLER/PA

The number of illegal migrants crossing the Channel into Britain passed the annual record yesterday as Priti Patel came under fire for failing to stem a steep rise in people making the journey.

The Home Office said 287 migrants reached the UK in 12 boats, taking this year’s total to 8,474, according to a Times running tally.

It means the number of people who have made the crossing in 2021 is already higher than last year’s record-breaking 8,420 crossings, with more than five months to go.

The complex migrant crisis in the Channel

Almost 1,000 have made the 21-mile journey in the past three days as smugglers took advantage of the good weather. Thousands more are expected over the next two months.

Last night Patel, the home secretary, struck a deal with her French counterpart to pay a further £54 million to increase patrols of beaches in northern France and for new equipment to detect smugglers. The deal will double the number of French police patrolling the 100-mile coastline to 200 officers.

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Conservative MPs and campaigners lashed out at Patel for “throwing good money after bad solutions”. They pointed out that a £28 million deal with the French last November to double patrols had failed to prevent an increase in crossings.

The MP for Calais today said that the Home Office’s £54million payment to France is pointless because migrants will “find somewhere else to cross”.

Speaking to Radio 4’s Today programme, Pierre-Henri Dumont said: “The fact is, having more money, having more police, having more controls will not prevent more crossing attempts. We have too many kilometers of shore to monitor. They can hide in a lot of places, there are a lot of roads, woods and trees.

“So even if you are monitoring 100pc of a small or large part of the French coast the smugglers will find somewhere to cross somewhere else. If it’s not Calais they will go to Normandy, if not Normandy then Belgium or the Netherlands.”

The record day coincided with MPs backing new laws to clamp down on illegal immigration and people smugglers. They voted through the Nationality and Borders Bill by a majority of 366 to 265. The legislation will take months to come into effect.

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Natalie Elphicke, Conservative MP for Dover, said: “Some people might be wondering what on earth we have been paying the French for as it is — tens of millions of pounds, yet more and more migrants arriving. What is needed is for France to stop boats leaving, as they are paid to do, turn boats back and make returns. Only then will the small boats crisis come to an end.”

Peter Bone, a fellow Tory, said: “We’re throwing good money after bad solutions. The French have no intention of stopping economic migrants from leaving France in little boats to get to the United Kingdom.

“Giving more money makes no sense at all. What we have to do is return these migrants to France.

“They’re not asylum seekers because asylum seekers would seek asylum in the first safe country they would get to, which is certainly not the UK. All we’re doing is playing into the hands of these evil human-trafficking gangs. If you were to return the economic migrants straight back to France, this would stop overnight and the human-trafficking gangs would be put out business.”

Ben Greening, from the Migration Watch UK think tank, which campaigns for lower immigration, said: “Instead of newfound control, we are seeing crossings spiral further out of control. The new legislation must deliver on the government’s firm pledges to stem this shocking scandal.”

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Patel said that the British people had “simply had enough of illegal migration” as she met Gérald Darmanin, the French interior minister, to sign an agreement to deepen intelligence sharing. Under the deal, Britain will provide more military-grade equipment, such as drones, to improve aerial surveillance, thermal imaging and radar technology. The Home Office insisted a similar deal struck last November had led to twice as many interceptions of small boats before they reached UK waters. “The problem is, the number of migrants being exploited by people smugglers has also doubled,” a source said.

The money will ensure that French officers deploy across a wider area of the coastline and will be spent on infrastructure to increase border security at key crossing points.

The Home Office said the French authorities made two interceptions yesterday, preventing 50 people from crossing the Channel.

Patel said: “The British people have simply had enough of illegal migration and the exploitation of migrants by criminal gangs. The public are rightly angry that small boats are arriving on our shores, facilitated by appalling criminal gangs who profit from human misery and put lives at risk. The government is addressing the challenge of illegal migration ... through comprehensive reform of our asylum system, which will enable us to go after the gangs exploiting people, deter illegal entry into the UK, introduce new and tougher criminal offences for those attempting to enter the UK illegally and strengthen our ability to remove those with no legal right to be in the UK.”

Nick Thomas-Symonds, Labour’s shadow home secretary, said: “These are yet more empty words from the Conservatives.”

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