PM to create new laws on Channel migrants

With hundreds crossing the Channel in the last few days, Boris Johnson says tighter laws are needed

Boris Johnson has pledged to create new laws to tackle migrants crossing the Channel after the Brexit transition period, as the RAF deployed an aircraft to search the sea yesterday. The Prime Minister conceded that it was “very difficult” to return migrants to France and would require a “look at the legal framework”. Today Chris Philp, the immigration minister, will hold talks in Paris to discuss the situation, as a French MP criticised the UK over reported plans to deploy the Navy.

‘At the end of this year we will no longer be bound by the EU’S laws so we can negotiate our own returns policy’

‘Nothing really changes unless you get other countries to agree. There would have to be a trade-off of some kind’

BORIS JOHNSON has pledged to create new laws to tackle migrants crossing the Channel once the Brexit transition period comes to an end, as the RAF deployed an aircraft to assist Border Force for the first time.

The Prime Minister conceded that it was “very, very difficult” to return migrants who arrived in the UK from France across the Channel, and said the UK would need to “look at the legal framework that we have” that allowed such a situation to develop.

However Mr Johnson added that his Government needed to look at what it could do to “change” the “panoply of laws that an illegal immigrant has at his or her disposal that allows them to stay here”.

Record numbers of asylum seekers have crossed the Channel to reach the UK this year, with nearly 600 people having made the journey by boat in the last few days alone. Today Chris Philp, the immigration minister, will hold talks with his French counterparts to seek to agree stronger measures, including interceptions and returns, to tackle the shared challenge head on.

Yesterday the UK Government was accused of exercising “political measure” following speculation that the Royal Navy would be deployed to help with the crisis.

Pierre-henri Dumont, the MP for Calais, said involving the Navy was “to show some kind of resource… but technically speaking that won’t change anything”. His comments came after the RAF for the first time assisted Border Force by deploying its Atlas A400M transport aircraft to survey the Channel yesterday morning on orders authorised by Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, following the Home Office’s formal request for help from the MOD.

Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, who travelled to Dover yesterday to “see how Border Force and other operational partners are tirelessly dealing with the unacceptable number of illegal small boat crossings”, pledged to make this “incredibly dangerous route unviable”.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman cited the “inflexible and rigid” Dublin Regulations regarding migrants as one obstacle to reducing the numbers arriving, but said by December 31 this would no longer be the case.

“There is a time limit placed on returns. It’s something which can be abused by both migrants and their lawyers to frustrate the returns of those who have no right to be here,” he said.

“At the end of this year we will no longer be bound by the EU’S laws so can negotiate our own returns policy.”

Under EU law, an asylum seeker who enters the European Union should have their claim decided in the first country of entry, where they are also fingerprinted. If the person then moves on to another country, the Dublin framework allows them to be sent back to their point of entry for their asylum claim to be determined there.

Steve Peer, professor of Law at the University of Essex and research investigator for The UK in a Changing Europe, suggested a “political trade-off ” would be required. “Nothing really changes unless you get other countries to agree. There would have to be a trade-off of some kind. Perhaps more money would be put on the table”, or “something else in the EU talks”.

In a letter to Ms Patel, 23 Tory MPS and two peers said the UK should refuse to sign up to a “similar agreement” after December. However, Colin Yeo, an immigration lawyer, told The Daily Telegraph that as “imperfect” as the UK Government might consider the Dublin arrangement, it was “the only current legal basis for getting another country to accept back an asylum seeker”.

“I can’t see what the Dublin Agreement is going to be replaced with and it doesn’t feel like there is very much prospect of it being replaced. Why would the French agree to taking asylum seekers back?”

Mr Johnson was later criticised for “inflammatory” language he used when discussing migrants after he described the Channel crossings as a “very bad and stupid and dangerous and criminal thing to do”.

A Home Office source said that once the UK was “no longer bound by Dublin after the transition”, then “we will be able to negotiate our own bilateral returns agreement from the end of this year”.