Kentish Express Ashford & District
Border treaty is not at risk
The Prime Minister and Damian Collins MP should check their facts (‘Migrants camps will come here if we quit EU, warns Cameron’, February 10).
France is highly unlikely to withdraw from the Treaty of le Touquet, the treaty between the governments of the UK and France under which the juxtaposed controls in Dover and Calais were established.
Indeed Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister has gone on record as saying it “would not be a responsible solution… It is a foolhardy path, and one the government will not pursue.”
Should France nonetheless withdraw from the Treaty, the UK would be more secure outside the European Union that within it.
The Treaty of le Touquet did not and does not involve any decision or policy making body of the European Union, nor is it related to any EU Treaty.
It is a bilateral treaty between two national governments.
As such its status would not be changed one iota by the UK leaving the EU or, for that matter, France leaving the EU.
As the Treaty of Le Touquet and the EU are entirely separate and unconnected, France would have no more reason to withdraw from the treaty if we left the EU than it does right now.
If France withdrew from the Treaty whilst the UK remains a EU Member State, we would indeed face a serious immigration problem because the EU’s Dublin Regulation, with which we have to comply whilst EU Member State and which dictates that we would then have to return any migrant seeking asylum to the country through which they first entered the EU.
This is impractical as a) the country of entry may be difficult to determine, b) the country of entry would probably be Italy or Greece, neither of which would cooperate given their present difficulties and b) returning such asylum seekers would be a costly and logistical nightmare.
So, yes, if France withdraws from the Treaty and IF WE REMAIN IN THE EU, we may well have asylum camps in Kent.
However, should France withdraw from the treaty after BREXIT we would no longer be beholden to the EU’s Dublin Regulation and would therefore be free to invoke general international law instead.
That means we could turn migrants and asylum seekers away from our border controls (which would then be in Dover) or could prosecute them if breaking the law, without the European Court of Justice saying otherwise.
Asylum seekers could also be returned to the last safe country ie: France, where they should apply for asylum.
This is why our borders would be more secure if we left the EU.
The fact is that our borders can be made more secure when we leave the European Union. Messrs Cameron and Collins are both either very badly informed or are deliberately misleading the public. Henry Bolton, Ukip police and crime commissioner candidate for Kent and Diane James, MEP South East Region UK, Ukip justice and home affairs spokesman