Britain and France ‘will stay united after call to end Calais border deal’
HOME Secretary Amber Rudd arrived in Paris today with a warning that any attempt by France to scrap border checks at Calais could backfire.
She was meeting interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve, who has been an ally of Britain in the battle to cut down the number of illegal migrants trying to enter the UK from the so-called “Jungle” camp in northern France. The pair were due to focus on security in the wake of the terrori s t at roc i t i es in France but were forced to respond to demands from some French politicians to cancel a deal that allows Britain to erect border controls on French soil.
There was no immediate denial from the Home Office of a report that Britain is threatening to review security cooperation with France if the agreement is annulled. A UK source said Ms Rudd and Mr Cazeneuve would stay united on the issue. “Both the UK and French governments will restate their commitment to protecting our shared border — there is absolutely no appetite on either side to remove the juxtaposed controls,” he said.
The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, now seeking a comeback, is the biggest voice yet calling for the treat y to be either r e f o r me d o r annulled. The Home Office previously said: “The French Government have repeatedly made it clear that removing the juxtaposed controls would not be in the interests of France.”
Xavier Bertrand, president of the Hauts-de-France Nord Pas De CalaisPicardie region, which includes Calais, wants a new deal in which migrants hoping to claim asylum in the UK would be able to do so at a “hotspot” in France. This was dismissed as a “complete nonstarter” by a Home Office source.
Shadow home secretary Andy Burnham said he supported the Government in resisting pressure to change the arrangements but claimed it was “crass and insensitive” to make threats or draw a link between security issues and the migrant situation in Calais.
He said: “Theresa May should make it clear that threatening a long-standing ally with the withdrawal of co-operation on counter-terrorism is not part of the UK’s negotiating position.”
Lib-Dem leader Tim Farron said: “The French and British governments have both failed to deal with the pile up of refugees in Calais over the last year, and we’re now facing the consequences of that failure.”
Charlie Elphicke, Tory MP for Dover, said axing the treaty “would simply not work” and instead it should be strengthened so migrants can be efficiently registered and either given asylum or sent back to their homeland.
He said: “For too long the symptoms have been addressed with big fences — we need to deal with the actual causes and to deal with the Jungle which is a magnet for migrants, and deal with the people traffickers.”