Latest news with #ChannelMigrants
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- General
- Daily Mail
Keir Starmer is criticised for making 'deeply dishonest' claims about Labour's record on small boats after PM's boast that 'almost 30,000 people' had been removed from Britain
For once Sir Keir Starmer was in tune with the mood of the country when he said he was 'angry' after more than 1,000 Channel migrants arrived over the weekend. But the Prime Minister was made to look foolish after being criticised for making 'deeply dishonest' claims about Labour's record on small boats. Sir Keir boasted in an online post that 'almost 30,000 people' had been removed from the UK. However, this figure refers to all types of foreign nationals who have no right to live in the UK rather than those who arrive by crossing the Channel. The number of small boat migrants removed in the 12 months to March fell three per cent year-on-year to 2,240. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: 'This is deeply dishonest. 'The number of removals of small boat arrivals has actually gone down under Labour.' Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said Sir Keir's claims were 'rubbish'. Some 1,195 Channel migrants arrived in the UK from northern France on Saturday – the fifth-highest daily total since the crisis began in 2018. The Prime Minister scrapped the Tories' Rwanda scheme, which was designed to deter migrants from crossing, as one of his first acts in office. Since Labour came to power 38,053 migrants have reached Britain, up a third on the same period in 2023-24, when the figure was 28,452. Officials have privately admitted that internal Home Office assessments indicate Labour is on course to preside over the worst year for Channel crossings. Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK which campaigns for tougher border controls, accused Sir Keir of attempting to 'intentionally mislead the public'. He added: 'The PM's suggestion that 30,000 Channel migrants have been removed is simply not true.' Tory Justice spokesman Robert Jenrick said: 'His fantasy statistics take the public for fools. 'They can see through his smoke and mirrors. Starmer has lost control of our borders.' It comes as Home Office insiders have urged France to 'step up' and fulfil a promise to intercept dinghies at sea. There is frustration within Labour at slow French progress in amending its rules so boats can be stopped once they are in the water, the Mail understands. France first pledged the change earlier this year but has still not completed a legal review, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told MPs on Monday. A Home Office source said: 'The French committed to intervene in the water in February, it's about time they stepped up and did what they've told us they're going to do.' Ms Cooper said in the Commons: 'A French maritime review is looking at what new operational tactics they will use, and we are urging France to complete this review and implement the changes as swiftly as possible.' Ministers have blamed fine weather for the increase in arrivals, with officials saying there have been twice as many days when the Channel is able to be crossed by dinghies compared with last year.
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
France stops fewer Channel migrants, despite Sunak agreement
France is intercepting fewer Channel migrants than at any time since the first small boats arrived, despite a £480 million funding deal with Britain to help stop crossings, figures suggest. It has stopped 8,347 asylum seekers from reaching UK waters in small boats so far this year, while 13,167 have so far crossed – meaning that just over 38 per cent have been intercepted. That is down from an estimated 45 per cent last year, 46.9 per cent in 2023 and 42.4 per cent in 2022, the record year when 45,774 people reached the UK and 33,791 were prevented from doing so by France. The fall in interceptions comes despite a three-year, £480 million Anglo-French deal agreed by Rishi Sunak in March 2023 to double officers patrolling beaches to 800, set up a joint command centre and a detention centre to stop migrants leaving France. It coincides with a change in tactics by people-smugglers, who have used 'taxi boats' that remain in the water and collect migrants from beaches in northern France. The strategy allows smugglers to evade capture, forcing police to conduct rescue operations rather than arrest the perpetrators. Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, has also suggested that the number of crossings – up 30 per cent this year on the same point last year – have surged because of the higher number of good weather 'red days' so far. Ministers believe a series of legal changes in France and Germany will stem the flow of migrants. The French government has amended laws so police can stop boats at sea for the first time. It will enable police to use their own boats in shallow waters to take on people-smugglers carrying migrants in overloaded vessels. French ministers are also planning to restore the offence of an 'illegal stay' in France, which would allow the police to arrest migrants and smugglers before they attempt a crossing. Currently, migrants who attempt to cross the Channel are only considered to have committed an offence when they launch the boat. Germany, where many migrant boats are stored before being deployed to the French coast, is also tightening its laws to make it easier to prosecute those helping to smuggle migrants to the UK. Facilitating people-smuggling is not currently technically illegal in Germany if it is to a third country outside the EU, which includes the UK following Brexit. Under the new agreement, Germany has pledged to make the activity a clear criminal offence. 'France is in breach of international law' A Home Office spokesman said: 'We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security. 'The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die as long as they pay, and we will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice. That is why this Government has put together a serious plan to take down these networks at every stage. 'Through international intelligence sharing under our Border Security Command, enhanced enforcement operations in northern France and tougher legislation in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, we are strengthening international partnerships and boosting our ability to identify, disrupt, and dismantle criminal gangs whilst strengthening the security of our borders.' However, Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said: 'France is in breach of its international law obligations to stop illegal migration. Stopping under 40 per cent of illegal immigrants attempting to cross is pathetic. Even the 40 per cent stopped are simply let go by the French, and they just attempt to cross the next day instead.' Tony Smith, a former Border Force director general, said: 'The figures on French preventions are disappointing given the investment we are making in resourcing their activities there. 'Promises to introduce maritime interventions even in shallow waters have come to nothing – and allowing boats to continue their journeys even after corpses are removed from what is a potential crime scene is totally unacceptable. 'Also, the French policy of handing out life jackets is a clear signal that they have little interest in preventing asylum seekers from putting their lives at risk by crossing the Channel. 'On the contrary, once the boats have launched, their policy is to do all they can to facilitate their passage to UK waters rather than rescue them and take them back to France, where their safety could be assured.'
Daily Mail
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
ANDREW PIERCE: The reward for betraying your party? £600 a day
When Tory MP Natalie Elphicke defected to Labour last May, most of us assumed she would be rewarded for her treachery. How right we were! Elphicke, whose opportunistic move appalled most of her new-found Labour colleagues – she'd backed Liz Truss for the Tory leadership and was a hardliner on immigration – was last month made chairman of the Defence Housing Strategy review team. This aims to improve the often lamentable condition of homes used by military families. Her salary is £600 a day. Nice work if you can get it. Elphicke, who stood down from Parliament at the last election, was once a champion of the Tory Rwanda migrant scheme. She then defected, arguing Labour would stop the small boats. Which makes her deluded as well as greedy. Under Labour, record numbers of migrants are crossing the Channel, to the horror of her former constituents in Dover. The Government seems determined to sell out our fishermen – part of its 'reset' with the EU. And that means we can expect some particularly telling contributions from Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader. Farage is now the proud owner of a commercial fishing boat. 'I have a skipper that runs that boat, and I'm not making any money on it,' he says. 'I can promise you, the rules and regulations put upon our small commercial fleet since Brexit are worse than they were when we were a member of the European Union.' Will the BBC welcome Boris Becker back to its Wimbledon coverage this year to mark the 40th anniversary of his first victory? He's been off Auntie's airwaves since a bankruptcy scandal led to his imprisonment. He wants to return – but the BBC won't say if it's game on. Nigel Farage was quick to overrule hapless Reform chairman Zia Yusuf after he insisted only the Union Flag and the flag of St George would be allowed to fly above Reform town halls in England. Farage now says county banners can also be flown. Sensible. Proud Lancastrian Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the Commons, was enraged by Yusuf's diktat. He expects to see the red rose flying above every official building in his native county. As any MP knows, it's best to keep on the right side of the Speaker. The fateful meeting in the summer of 2019 when Morgan McSweeney agreed to run Sir Keir Starmer's Labour leadership campaign was brokered by Steve Reed, a relatively unknown MP. Reed and McSweeney, now No 10 chief of staff, used to work together at Lambeth Council. 'Loyalty and gratitude are the hallmarks of politicians,' says Reed, now the Environment Secretary. 'That's the only way I can account for being rewarded with the department for sewage and angry farmers.' Baroness Anderson has had her revenge. Formerly Ruth Smeeth, she had a rough time as a Jewish Labour MP during the Jeremy Corbyn years. Now a Lords whip, she adapted an old remark on Wednesday to say: 'The Labour party is a broad synagogue.' That's called getting even. Impressionist Rory Bremner recalls playing tennis with Tony Blair on holiday in France before he won the 1997 General Election. 'Blair said he loved what I did with John Major and I said: 'When you become prime minister next year the boot will be on the other foot – I'll be doing you'.'
