A French presidential candidate ripped into Britain’s ‘shocking’ immigration policies and blamed them for the small boats crisis.
Édouard Philippe, President Macron‘s former centre-Right prime minister, vowed he would tear up agreements between Britain and France if the UK didn’t change its ‘absurd’ approach.
He said it was ‘incoherent’ for French police to attempt to stop migrants crossing the Channel, while Labour’s policies entice them over – and blamed Britain for the regular deaths of migrants.
The UK government signed a three-year deal in April in which it paid France £662million to try to stop migrants launching small boats from its northern beaches – where the vast majority set off from.
This covers around half the cost of France’s policing operation to intercept migrants, with the rest made up by the French government.
Speaking after meeting police officers and mayors in Zuydcoote, near Dunkirk, Mr Philippe said that if he became president next year, France would ‘significantly review our relationship with Britain’, The Times reported.
Unless Britain pays the full cost of the Channel policing, and tightens its immigration rules, he vowed to pull out of the Touquet treaty – which authorises police from Britain and France to carry out border checks in each other’s country.
Through this agreement, British police officers currently have the right to operate in Calais and other coastal towns.
French presidential hopeful Édouard Philippe (pictured, right, near Dunkirk) said Britain has an ‘incoherent’ approach towards stopping the boats
Mr Philippe said: ‘I consider the agreement we have with [Britain] to be unsatisfactory. We must obtain more from the English, renegotiate the Touquet treaty and, if we do not get what we want, terminate it.’
‘It is unacceptable that the funding offered by the UK is insufficient relative to the expenses incurred by France, and it is unacceptable … that the UK maintains rules on its territory that invite migrants to cross the Channel.’
Describing the current treatment of migrants as ‘absurd’, Philippe said Britain gives residency rights or asylum to almost two-thirds of small-boat immigrants.
He added that even those who are told to leave can, in practice, continue to live and work in the UK.
This, he said, is an ‘extremely shocking situation’ that ‘imposes a burden on France’.
He urged the EU to take a similar approach to Britain, arguing our failure to regulate immigration was also sowing chaos in Belgium and the Netherlands.
More than 10,000 small boat migrants have crossed the Channel since Andy Burnham became Prime Minister.
A total of 1,670 people made the perilous journey between Thursday and Sunday last week, according to the latest Home Office figures.
A group of migrants is brought ashore today at the Border Security Command compound in Dover last week
The surge – which ends a three-week pause – saw 263 migrants arrive on Thursday, followed by another 671 on Friday and 259 on Saturday.
Another 477 arrived in seven boats on Sunday, shredding Mr Burnham’s claims to have a grip on the crisis.
The PM’s total now stands at 10,136, averaging 96.5 per day – higher than the recorded averages under Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson and Theresa May.
It is only slightly lower than the figure during Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership, which saw 77,183 arrivals averaging 103.5 a day.
It comes as Shabana Mahmood on Monday unveiled her new immigration rules, which have been significantly watered down following a highly damaging battle within the Labour Party.
The Home Secretary’s proposals to make low-skilled foreign migrants wait far longer for ‘settled’ status in Britain have been rewritten after strident opposition from her party’s Left wing.
Chris Philp MP, Shadow Home Secretary, told the Daily Mail: ‘Open-borders Burnham has done nothing to tackle illegal immigration, and his watering down of settlement reforms will only make the problem worse by keeping the incentives to come here illegally firmly in place.
‘We need to smash those incentives entirely by deporting illegal immigrants and ending benefits for foreign nationals. There must be no reward for breaking into Britain.
‘Only the Conservatives have the backbone to deliver a borders plan including leaving the ECHR and deporting all illegal immigrants. That is how we end the crisis in the Channel.’
