I headed to France to find out more about what’s happening on the ground with the illegal migration crisis following my observations at sea on the Channel last week.
Since Labour won the election, 50,000 people have illegally crossed the Channel, and 2025 is the worst year ever so far, with over 27,000 illegal immigrants crossing. Labour scrapped the Rwanda deterrent, and now small boat crossings have shot up.
This feels to many like an invasion.
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Last week, I spent the day on the Channel just off Calais to see if the Government’s new deal with France is working. It isn’t.
I saw French warships escorting dinghies in the Channel on the very day Labour’s migrant surrender deal was meant to come into effect.
I heard French forces asking for 60 of their life jackets back so that they can facilitate more boat crossings. It looked to me like the French were facilitating illegal immigration, which is a criminal offence under section 25 of the Immigration Act 1971.
Having a machete pulled on me confirmed my worst fears: Labour's migrant crackdown doesn't exist - Chris Philp
|GB/ChrisPhilp/X/Phil Harris/Getty Images
So, I decided to go to Calais myself to take a look at what action the French police were taking to stop the boats from crossing.
At 3:30am in the morning, I went to a notorious canal near Dunkirk where boats are launched to pick up illegal immigrants from the beaches. As we looked around, there was no sign of any French police.
I met some local French fishermen on the quayside near Gravelines beach. They told me they have seen many illegal immigrant embarkations in the area. I asked if the French police did anything to stop the crossings.
They told me that as soon as the illegal immigrants have one foot in the water, the police back off. What a disgrace. We should be asking the French for our money back. They are clearly not doing anything to stop illegal immigrants from leaving the shores of France.
By 7am, I went to a beach by the power plant where a small boat had embarked from yesterday. You would expect regular police patrols to ensure no more small boats are left from here.
Again, absolutely no French police to be seen. What are the French doing? They are clearly making no effort to stop the boats from leaving France in the first place.
When we visited the migrant camp, I saw a man carrying a bag of lifejackets. I tried to ask him why he had them, but he would not tell me – I wonder why.
Then, as I was speaking to a resident of the camp, someone pulled a machete and started swinging it around, so we had to leave quickly.
As we left, migrants started throwing glass bottles at us and started pelting our car. And now, these people will be making their way to a hotel near the British public – what a joke.
Back home, the Labour Government are blaming the increase in small boat crossings on the good weather. They are taking the British public for fools.
Any serious deterrent should work whatever the weather, but Labour’s deal with France is clearly having no impact whatsoever.
We need to get serious about border security. Every single illegal immigrant should be immediately deported – then the crossings would soon stop.
That is what the Conservatives set out in our Deportation Bill. We would disapply the Human Rights Act in immigration cases to stop spurious “human rights” claims getting in the way of deporting illegal immigrants.
If their countries of origin do not want to take them back, we would stop issuing visas to these countries until they do.
We will not let anything stand in our way of removing illegal immigrants who have no right to be here.