Channel deaths fuel tensions over migrant boats

THE DEATHS of at least 27 people in the English Channel is fuelling tensions between the UK and France over how to stop migrants from crossing the world’s busiest shipping route in small boats.

Despite a pledge from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron that they would “do everything possible” to stop people smugglers from endangering lives, politicians on both sides of the channel are already blaming their counterparts for failing to prevent Wednesday’s tragedy.

British officials expressed frustration that France has rejected their offer to bolster enforcement along the channel coast by sending British law-enforcement officers to conduct joint patrols with French police. But Macron said his country needed “more responsible partners” in the UK and the European Union to fight illegal immigration.

“We are completely mobilised along our coast,” Macron told reporters during a visit to Croatia. “We are obviously going to maintain this maximum presence … (and) ask for additional mobilisation from the British. Because I remind you, when it comes to this, we are holding the border for the British.”

Wednesday’s tragedy comes amid an increase in the number of migrants trying to cross the channel in inflatable boats and other small craft after the COVID-19 pandemic limited air and ship travel, and Britain’s departure from the European Union (EU) curtailed cooperation with neighbouring countries.

More than 23,000 people have already entered the UK on small boats this year, up from 8,500 last year and just 300 in 2018, according to data compiled by Parliament.

The tensions are at least partly the result of Britain’s departure from the EU, which took effect at the beginning of last year.

When it left the bloc, Britain also exited a system that provided for intra-European cooperation on asylum and other migration issues, said Nando Sigona, professor of international migration and forced displacement at the University of Birmingham. At the same time, people smugglers have realised the channel is a lucrative route for migrants and they are stepping up their effort with bigger boats.

AP A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, England, by the RNLI, following a small-boat incident in the English Channel. On Wednesday, around 30 migrants bound for Britain died when their boat sank in the English Channel, in what France’s interior minister called the biggest migration tragedy on the dangerous crossing to date.