Channel migrant crossing - latest: UK officials head to France as PM sets out five urgent steps to ease crisis
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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”.
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Candlelit vigil in Calais for drowned migrants
A vigil is taking place outside the port of Calais for at least 27 people who died crossing the English Channel in a dinghy that capsized.
Activists and members of associations defending migrants’ rights have unfurled a banner that reads “309 dead on the France UK border since 1999” – listing all the names of known deceased asylum seekers.
Other attendees to the vigil in Richelieu Park lit candles and laid tributes for at least 10 men, seven women and three children who lost their lives yesterday.
Overcrowded boats ‘homemade’ and ‘like paddling pools’
As a vigil was being held in Calais for migrants that died, a charity worker across the Channel has warned that it’s “only a matter of time” before more people drown trying to get to the UK.
Rory Sullivan is in Dover and has spoken to Kay Marsh – who works in community engagement for the migrant charity Samphire.
She said that some dinghies asylum seekers are put in appear to be “homemade” and “like paddling pools”.
On the deaths, Ms Marsh added: “It’s the biggest tragedy we’ve seen in the last few years. It’s proof that the government’s strategy of deterrence isn’t working.”
Read Rory’s dispatch from Dover here:
‘Only a matter of time’ before more deaths, Dover residents warn
UK officials heading to France for talks
UK government officials and law enforcement are heading to France for talks amid the migrant crossing crisis, according to reports.
Some reports are saying that they are travelling there this evening, while others say they are heading there tomorrow.
Home secretary Priti Patel is also set to travel to France for discussions from Sunday.
She will meet French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin to discuss the migrant crisis following the deaths of 27 people in the Channel yesterday.
Ms Patel spoke to him on the phone today to “put forward plans for greater collaboration and innovation in stopping these deadly crossings”.
The UK government said the ministers “underlined the need for deeper co-operation on stopping the Channel crossings and the need to work closely with European partners”.
Peer’s ‘sleeper terrorist’ speech amid Channel crisis ‘damaging’
A crossbench peer’s remarks about sleeper terrorists possibly being among migrants crossing the Channel were criticised as “damaging”.
In the Lords, former Labour MP Baroness Hoey said that the chance that there are no sleeper terrorists among people fleeing persecution and poverty is “nil”, as all small-boat passengers are “told by the smugglers to destroy their documents”.
She referred to reports that 24 out of 4,000 migrants taken in by Lithuania via Belarus had “direct links with Isis”.
Lady Hoey also slammed “the industry of lawyers making millions from the whole asylum-immigration system”.
She said that the deaths of at least 27 people yesterday is a “wake-up call, much too late” for authorities to take action.
Refugee campaigner and Labour peer Lord Dubs warned that her comments were “damaging” and “the most awful accusation to make against our fellow human beings who are fleeing for safety”.
Lord Dubs, who fled the Nazis as a child on the Kindertransport scheme, added: “We are a country that believes the vulnerable of this world, though suffering from persecution, are entitled to safety.”
Responding, Home Office minister Baroness Williams of Trafford said: “People arriving by small boats are subject to stringent checks immediately upon arrival in the UK and again as they are processed into the asylum system.”
PM urges Macron to ‘move further and faster’ on migrant crisis
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”.
‘Everyone completely shocked’, says activist in Dunkirk
Anti-racism campaigner Jean Sunan spoke to Zoe Tidman, who is in Dunkirk, about the deaths of at least 27 migrants yesterday.
There have been reports that the death toll from the capsized dinghy has surpassed 30.
Mr Sunan was at the Dunkirk vigil, where candles were lit at a monument overlooking the water.
He said: “Everyone is completely shocked by what happened.
“There have been deaths before, but 30-odd – that’s the first time that has happened.”
Boris Johnson has shared the letter he sent to Emmanuel Macron earlier this evening.
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