WHAT AN UTTER BORDER FARCE ( CONT)
Caught on radio... French and British patrol ships offer migrants ‘taxi ride’ across the Channel
BRITISH and French patrol ships are colluding in the Channel to provide a ‘handover’ of traffickers’ migrant boats.
The Daily Mail can reveal the extraordinary level of co-operation at sea between the two nations in ‘pass the parcel’ operations organised by UK Border Force officers and French navy warship captains.
In an astonishing series of maritime radio conversations, recorded on Sunday morning from a public channel, the French warships and maritime police can be heard contacting the Border Force vessels Defender, Hurricane and Ranger to arrange the handover of boats carrying migrants, including five children, 12 miles off Kent.
The conversation between the vessels suggests the French navy may be routinely guiding migrant boats from the French coast to mid-Channel meet-ups with the British, who then put the passengers on board Border Force vessels to bring them into Dover.
The revelation comes as Home Secretary Suella Braverman met her French counterpart to agree a deal yesterday which she hopes will prevent the small-boat crossings that have brought 40,000 migrants to the UK this year – including a big surge in the number coming from Albania.
The three radio conversations between the French and British vessels were recorded between 10am and 11am UK time on
Remembrance Sunday. They begin with the captain of France’s warship Pluvier calling the Defender to say: ‘We have just crossed into your area.’
The French officer gives a maritime chart reference showing that he is on the French-English sea border in the Channel. The Defender officer then responds: ‘We have good visibility of this [migrant] craft. We are going to... make sure there is no sea traffic to interfere. We are content to let the migrant vessel run on a little bit further.’
Pluvier replies: ‘I understand we have a handover with you.’
The Defender agrees, requesting that the French ship ‘remain in current area until we can
start embarkation’. In a second conversation, thought to refer to a separate migrant boat, the French maritime police radio call Border Force Hurricane, also on duty intercepting illegals in the Channel that morning.
The French police say: ‘We are on our route coming with one boat of migrants. Are you ready to receive them or not?’
Border Force Hurricane replies: ‘We have just been tasked to
another event but there is another vessel on its way with an ETA [estimated time of arrival] of about 20 minutes.’
The Border Force officer asks the French maritime police: ‘If you could please stay with them until another vessel which is Border Force Ranger arrives there.’
Having received the message, the maritime police promise their vessel will stay beside the migrant boat until Border Force Ranger
gets to the pick-up point between French and British Channel waters. In a third recording some minutes later, the French maritime police tell the Border Force Ranger their warship is ‘right now on your starboard side’.
‘We contacted the Border Force Hurricane just before,’ says the French message.
‘Normally, you come into our position to take charge of the small [ migrant] boat we are
escorting.’ The Ranger responds: ‘We will be closing in on your position at the moment. We will be on scene in approximately five minutes. Do you have a rough approximation of numbers?’
The reply is unclear due to interference online, but the Ranger is told there are adult migrants and ‘five children’.
The Ranger closes the conversation with the words: ‘We will be with you shortly. Appreciate if you
could hold station while we embark [ the migrants].’ Mrs Braverman is likely to frown upon the level of co-operation between the French and British over the migrant crossings.
A businessman trading in seafood from Ramsgate, Kent, who passed the recordings – taken legally – to the Mail, said: ‘They prove what many of us working at sea in the Channel have long suspected. The French watch the migrant boats leaving their beaches and escort them over many hours to mid- Channel where the British pick them up and bring them into Dover and a new life.
‘It is a taxi service in all but name.’ Craig Mackinlay, Conservative MP for South Thanet in Kent, added: ‘It just goes from bad to worse.
‘I’m sick to death of Border Force acting as a taxi service.
‘The messages make it all sound very chummy.
‘Anyone who has worked at sea knows that’s the way you might behave, but what we should be saying is: “You picked them up on your side of the line, you take them back.”’
Last year the Mail revealed similar audio revealing Channel
‘I BELIEVE WE HAVE A HANDOVER WITH YOU,’ FRENCH SHIP TELLS UK VESSEL
migrants had been secretly picked up in French waters by the UK Border Force and taken to Dover.
The controversial move was orchestrated between senior crew members of HMC Valiant and French patrol ship Athos and officers were heard discussing the ‘legality’ of the decision.
The UK’s 140ft cutter Valiant then headed over to the French side of the Channel and launched a fast inflatable boat to collect the migrants on a dinghy before bringing them back.
Priti Patel, who was home secretary at the time, ordered an urgent investigation, saying the incident ‘should not have happened’.
The Home Office was contacted for comment over the latest Channel revelation.