Escape across the English Channel: British want to send boats back

London and Paris have long been fighting over the refugees in the English Channel. The British Home Secretary now wants to send back migrant boats. Critics consider this to be unworkable.

13,500 refugees have already come from northern France to southern England via the English Channel this year. This is already 5000 more than in the whole of 2020. The good weather in the past few days should again ensure record numbers for the crossings.

Although there were rumors at the beginning of the week that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was planning to replace his Home Secretary Priti Patel, he backed her in Parliament when discussing measures against migrants: “My Home Secretary is fighting to ensure that French beaches are first don’t even leave. ” You are dependent on the French. “But now that the problem persists, we need to make sure that we are taking all tactics that are available to us.”

This now apparently includes the order that British patrols will in future reject boats carrying migrants from their own waters in the English Channel instead of escorting them to the English coast – as has been the case up to now. Patel had given a corresponding instruction to the border protection authority, it was said from government circles.

Leverage: millions in payments to Paris

A meeting between Patel and her French counterpart Gérald Darmanin on the subject ended in the middle of the week with no tangible result. At the beginning of the week, Patel threatened to suspend payments to the French that had already been promised if they did not stop the refugees more effectively. At the end of July, London had promised France grants totaling 60 million euros for this year and next to help finance a stronger presence of French security forces on the coast.

Now Patel would like to enforce so-called pushbacks in the English Channel. This is already practiced by the EU border protection agency Frontex in the Mediterranean, when their patrols lead migrant boats back to the Libyan coast guard, who then accompanies the boats back to shore.

Cooperation with the French necessary

According to critics such as Lucy Morton from the border guards union, something like this would not work under the rules of the law of the sea without the cooperation of the French: “I would be surprised if there was even a single pushback. There are a lot of restrictions, under who are not allowed to do so, for example when people are in the water, “said Morton on the BBC. The French would have to cooperate and save the shipwrecked in their waters, which they probably would not do: “The proposal is stillborn.”

Even Patel’s party friends consider the move to be unrealistic. “That sounds good and I sympathize with the Home Secretary’s plans, but it won’t work,” said Tim Laughton, Conservative MP and Chair of the Home Affairs Committee:

Any other ship that quickly passed these barely seaworthy boats would capsize them. People could drown and then we are blamed for it. Pushback sounds great, but practically it won’t work!

British Homemade Problem?

It is not because the French fail to notice the many attempts to escape – they simply have no interest in stopping them. “The more money we pay the French authorities, the worse the problem becomes,” says Laughton. It is not about not discovering the refugees, “they are not prepared to enforce the law and statute that they are obliged to do”. The only step to make the flight unattractive would be “that the migrants spend all the money they paid the smugglers for free and end up where they left off. That would end this criminal business model.”

Labor MP Lloyd Russel-Moyle, whose constituency is on the south coast of England, is of the opinion that the British could do more themselves to prevent the breakneck channel crossings: “The French cannot do their part as long as that British asylum law provides that one must be physically in the country to apply. ” You can’t just go to the British embassy in your country of origin to have your asylum checked. “So all that remains is to enter the country with a forged visa or to risk his life crossing the canal.”

Brexit promise on the brink

In addition, since Brexit, British authorities have no longer been able to easily return asylum seekers who have entered the country illegally to EU countries. And so a number of British Interior Minister tries with tough measures to keep the promise that the United Kingdom has regained control of its own borders by leaving the EU.