Boris Johnson has called on France to agree to joint police patrols along the French Channel coast after a migrant boat capsized with the loss of 27 lives.
The Prime Minister spoke to President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday evening in the wake of the worst incident of its kind in the Channel since the current migrant crisis began.
Downing Street said they had agreed to “keep all options on the table” in their efforts to break up the human trafficking gangs responsible for putting desperate people at risk in one of the world’s busiest sea lanes.
A dinghy carrying people thought to be migrants, arrives on a beach in Dungeness, Kent.
Gareth Fuller
Immigration compliance minister Tom Pursglove confirmed that Mr Johnson had renewed a previous offer to send UK police and Border Force officers to mount joint patrols with the French.
The aim is to prevent migrant boats from attempting the perilous crossing but the French have previously resisted amid concerns about the implications for their national sovereignty.
A joint search and rescue operation by the French and British authorities launched after a fishing boat spotted people in the sea off France was finally called off late on Wednesday.
French interior minister Gerald Darmanin said the dead included five women and a girl while two survivors had been picked up and were being treated in a French hospital. One of the dead women was later reported to have been pregnant.
A hearse drives into a warehouse in the Port of Calais, France, where it is believed the bodies of migrants are being transported after recovery from a boat which capsized off the French coast with the loss of at least 27 lives on Wednesday.
Stefan Rousseau
Mr Darmanin said the boat the which sank had been very flimsy, likening it to “a pool you blow up in your garden”.
A statement from the French regional maritime authority mentioned 27 deaths but did not explain the discrepancy with the larger number announced by Mr Darmanin.
The French authorities have arrested four suspected people traffickers in connection with the incident while the regional prosecutor has opened an investigation into aggravated manslaughter.
Following a meeting of the Cobra emergencies committee, Mr Johnson said it was clear that French operations to stop the migrant boats leaving “haven’t been enough” despite £54 million of UK support.
He said the people traffickers were “literally getting away with murder” and that he hoped the French would now find the renewed offer of joint patrols “acceptable”.
“We’ve had difficulties persuading some of our partners, particularly the French, to do things in a way that we think the situation deserves,” he said.
A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, on board the Dover lifeboat, following a small boat incident in the Channel.
Gareth Fuller
“I understand the difficulties that all countries face, but what we want now is to do more together – and that’s the offer we are making.”
However the mayor of Calais, Natacha Bouchart, said that it was the British who were to blame and called on on Mr Johnson to “face up to his responsibilities”.
“The British Government is to blame. I believe that Boris Johnson has, for the past year and a half, cynically chosen to blame France,” she said, according to French media reports.
Mr Johnson, meanwhile, said the Government would seek to “accelerate” measures in the Nationality and Borders Bill to enable the authorities to “distinguish between people who come here legally and people who come here illegally”.
But Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said the incident should lead the Government to rethink its approach.
“Surely a tragedy of this magnitude is the wake up call our Government needs to change its approach and finally commit to an expansion of safe routes for those men, women and children in desperate need of protection,” he said.
