Migrant crosses Channel on jetski
A DESPERATE migrant has reached Britain after jetskiing across the Channel.
In what is believed to be the first incident of its kind, the man was intercepted by UK Border Force officials off the Kent coast yesterday morning.
Two armed police officers were later seen inspecting the jetski after it was towed to Dungeness beach by the RNLI.
The crossing had echoes of the jetski voyage made last year during lockdown of a lovesick man from Ayrshire to his girlfriend on the Isle of Man.
It is not known how far across the Channel yesterday’s rider had travelled aboard the jetski before he was picked up.
The jetski was seen capsized as it was brought to the beach by Dungeness Shannon-class lifeboat, The Morrell.
It comes as France launched an extraordinary spat over the Channel crisis and blamed Britain for the thousands of migrants leaving its beaches.
Interior minister Gerald Darmanin claimed his country was the ‘victim of British politics’ and said the UK Government was responsible for the exodus.
Separately, two groups of 20 migrants, mainly young men, were picked up yesterday in the 21-mile wide Strait of Dover in dinghies. Border Force vessels brought the two groups to be processed at Tug Haven in the harbour at the Port of Dover.
Mr Darmanin’s remarks came just hours before he was due to hold online crisis talks with Home Secretary Priti Patel.
An emergency summit was called after 1,185 migrants reached Britain last Thursday, eclipsing the previous record of 853 set eight days earlier.
Mr Darmanin urged Britain to stop ‘giving lessons’ on migrants, amid signs of increasingly acrimonious relations between London and Paris.
‘The British must stop using us as punching bags for their domestic politics,’ he said.
‘Britain is in no position to be giving lessons to us.
‘I will tell my British counterpart that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) preventing police from working are mostly British NGOs, with British citizens that are doing agitprop on French territory.
‘The smugglers, who organise networks and exploit women and children, are very often based in Britain.’
He argued migrants were encouraged to leave for Britain as its labour market relied in part on ‘irregular workers employed at low cost’.
Mr Darmanin told French station Cnews: ‘If the British overhauled their legislation very strongly… there would be no people in Calais or Dunkirk.’
So far in November, 3,772 migrants have arrived in 114 boats. And 23,514 have made the journey in 2021, far exceeding the 8,410 who crossed by boat in the whole of last year.
Downing Street rejected claims that the UK’s labour market made it a soft touch for migrants looking to build a new life in the West.
The PM’s official spokesman said ministers were taking action to ‘disincentivise what is effectively a trade preying on vulnerable people’.