UK isn’t cooperating with bid to stop English Channel small boats, says France
The United Kingdom is failing to coordinate with France in efforts to reduce the number of migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats, according to a new report.
The document, published by the French Court of Accounts, states that France is “struggling to develop operational cooperation arrangements” with the UK and highlights the struggles of a joint intelligence unit established in 2020.
The unit aims to fight human smuggling and reduce how many people try to cross the Channel illegally.
However, the court “found that the British don’t provide usable information on the departures of small boats, and give very general, first-level information that has not been counter-checked”.
British information on migrants’ arrivals, circumstances and nationalities “appears to be very patchy,” the report added.
“The relationship between France and the UK is therefore unbalanced in terms of information and intelligence exchange,” it read.
A group of people thought to be migrants being brought in to Dover, Kent, in October
The Home Office has claimed the report “is based on out-of-date information and does not accurately reflect our current working relationship” with France.
In a statement insisting they “work closely with French partners,” they added: “In the last two years, we have taken more robust action alongside them to crack down on vile people-smuggling gangs and stop the boats.”
The government recently said small boat crossings have dropped, with 29,000 people arriving in 2023 compared with about 46,000 the year before.
However, leaked documents revealed the number could rise to 35,000 this year.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
The migrants who didn’t make it
This came as a separate Home Office claim about immigration was labelled “misleading” and “false”.
Rishi Sunak had claimed victory in clearing the backlog of asylum claims – despite 4,500 complex cases still requiring “additional checks or investigation”.
Labour’s shadow immigration minister accused the government of making a “false” claim.
Read more from Sky News:
UK flooding latest as major incident is declared
Names mentioned in unsealed Epstein documents so far
Rishi Sunak’s has pledged to ‘stop the boats’ in major speeches
Stephen Kinnock said: “The asylum backlog has rocketed to 165,000 under the Tories – eight times higher than when Labour left office – and no slicing or renaming the figures can disguise that fact.
“Meanwhile Rishi Sunak’s promise made a year ago to end asylum hotel use has been disastrously broken – with a 20% increase to 56,000, costing the British taxpayer more than £2bn a year.”
Reform’s plan was meant to be detailed. Instead, there’s more confusion.
The party had grown weary of the longstanding criticism that their tough talk on immigration did not come with a full proposal for what they would do to tackle small boats if they came to power.
So, after six months of planning, yesterday they attempted to put flesh on to the bones of their flagship policy.
Politics latest: Farage rows back on pledge to deport illegal migrant women and girls
At an expensive press conference in a vast airhanger in Oxford, the headline news was clear: Reform UK would deport anyone who comes here by small boat, arresting, detaining and then deporting up to 600,000 people in the first five years of governing.
They would leave international treaties and repeal the Human Rights Act to do it
But, one day later, that policy is clear as mud when it comes to who this would apply to.
Nigel Farage launched an airport-style departures board to illustrate how many illegal migrants have arrived in the UK. Pic: PA
I asked Farage at the time of the announcement whether this would apply to women and girls – an important question – as the basis for their extreme policy seemed to hinge on the safety of women and girls in the UK.
He was unequivocal: “Yes, women and children, everybody on arrival will be detained.
“And I’ve accepted already that how we deal with children is a much more complicated and difficult issue.”
But a day later, he appeared to row back on this stance at a press conference in Scotland, saying Reform is “not even discussing women and children at this stage”.
Read more:
Farage has a new ‘leave’ campaign – here’s how it could work
He later clarified that if a single woman came by boat, then they could fall under the policy, but if “a woman comes with children, we will work out the best thing to do”.
A third clarification in the space of 24 hours on a flagship policy they worked on over six months seems like a pretty big gaffe, and it only feeds into the Labour criticism that these plans aren’t yet credible.
If they had hoped to pivot from rhetoric to rigour, this announcement showed serious pitfalls.
But party strategists probably will not be tearing out too much hair over this, with polling showing Reform UK still as the most trusted party on the issue of immigration overall.
The “White Whale” increased his social media pressure campaign to $2.5 million after claiming that MEXC requested an in-person KYC verification in Malaysia.
Prosecutors appealed the sentences given to HashFlare founders Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin, after arguing the pair should get 10 years in prison.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment11 months agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024