SEIZE THE MIGRANT BOATS IN CALAIS

Javid jets home from safari to face fury over ‘Dad’s Army’ response to crisis, as MPs urge:

HOME SECRETARY Sajid Javid was last night forced to cut short a safari in South Africa amid a growing outcry over his ‘ Dad’s Army’ handling of the Channel migrant crisis.

Mr Javid bowed t o pressure to abandon his luxury break after MPs from his own party lined up to demand action – with one calling for the seizure of the French boats that migrants are using to reach Britain.

Mr Javid was yesterday packing his bags in a resort in Kruger National Park to race to London for a series of emergency Whitehall meetings. If he had stayed on holiday any longer, he risked the humiliation of being ordered to fly back by Prime Minister Theresa May.

The dash by Mr Javid – a frontrunner for the party leadership – came as:

He assured The Mail on Sunday that he was working urgently to stop the

crossings ‘before innocent lives are lost’;

It was claimed that up to 66 migrants had sneaked into Britain after crossing the Channel on Christmas Day alone;

Fingers were pointed at the French authorities for failing to stem the human tide;

Three Afghan men suspected of masterminding the crosschannel people- s muggling trade were arrested in France.

The latest crossing saw two boats carrying 12 men from Syria and Iran detained off Dover on Friday. It prompted Mr Javid to declare a ‘major incident’ from his holiday hideaway and appoint a ‘gold commander’ to take overall charge of the situation.

Responding to claims that 66 people made it to the UK on Christmas Day, t he Home Office said they had records of 40 who had arrived after crossing the Channel.

Reports suggest t hat t he number of migrants attempting to cross the Channel to England has hit more than 220 since the start of November.

The ‘blue-on-blue’ attacks on Mr Javid were led by Dover MP Charlie Elphicke, who uses an article in today’s Mail on Sunday to condemn the Home Secretary’s ‘half-hearted Dad’s Army type set-up’.

Mr Elphicke called for more patrol boats to be deployed in the Channel, and said: ‘For too long the Home Office has not been t aking t his seriously enough, and the crisis has continued to escalate.’

Only one of the Border Force’s fleet of five specialist ‘cutters’, which can intercept several migrant boats at the same time, is currently operational in the Dover Strait.

Tory MP Anne-Marie Trevelyan went further with her demands, calling for British crime-fighting teams to help the French to seize dinghies and engines being sold to people smugglers. She said her ‘ invest- to- save- lives policy’ would avoid tragedy.

‘The Government should offer money and resources to the French to hunt down the traffickers and those selling kit to them in France,’ she said. ‘If we were to starve this illegal trafficking economy of its cheap boats and engines, the costs of transportation would increase so migrants could not afford it.’

She continued: ‘ The Home Office has an opportunity to change this l atest, ghastly trade in human transportation by a coherent effort to stop cheap boats and engines being available in French ports to criminals. We need to ensure that we don’t now see deaths from unlit boats being ploughed under in the busiest waterway in the world.’ Mr Javid hit back, telling this newspaper that he will hold meetings tomorrow with senior officials from the Border Force, the National Crime Agency and a number of Government departments.

He said: ‘We are working tirelessly and urgently to stop these journeys before innocent lives are lost on our shores. There are a number of reasons behind the recent increase, many outside the UK’s control.

‘ There is no simple, single solution to the problem – which is why we are taking an international as well as domestic approach.’

Referring to the cutters, he said: ‘Much has also been made of the number of boats that Border Force has in the Channel. While I understand that some people are concerned the current number is not enough, we must carefully balance the need to rescue those in danger with the need to ensure we aren’t encouraging more people to put their lives at risk, in the belief they will be picked up and brought to the UK.’

He added: ‘I want to be clear that this is a situation that I as Home Secretary am taking very seriously. My priorities are clear: to safeguard life and to protect the UK’s borders.

‘I utterly condemn the reckless acts and criminal activity which are endangering life. I and my French counterpart are clear that we must stop it.’

Lucy Moreton, a spokesman for the Immigration Services Union, said it was ‘very difficult to know’ how much the French authorities were doing. She said: ‘We are being told that those touting for these crossings are absolutely open about it. They are around and about in the camps, they are in the cafes in Calais.

‘If it’s that obvious to journalists and staff in those areas, then presumably it is obvious to the French authorities too.’

Mr Javid’s holiday dash is the third time that he has been abroad when a crisis has blown up in his department.

Last year, when he was Communities Secretary, he came under fire for staying on holiday amid uproar over a planned increase in business rates. A year earlier he was forced to return from Australia when the future of the Port Talbot steel works was in the balance.

Last night, Mr Javid’s rivals for the leadership were struggling to show sympathy for his plight. One ally of a likely candidate said: ‘ Poor old Safari Sajid is not very lucky with his holiday timings is he?’

IT IS only a week since the chaos at Gatwick Airport symbolised a general lack of grip at the heart of government. Now we are again entangled in another easily foreseeable mess which seems to have taken ministers and officials by surprise.

It is more than a year since Serbia gave visa-free entry to travellers from Iran, a decision quickly abused by people- smugglers. They created a new back door into Europe, whose porous borders inevitably allowed significant numbers of Iranians to head towards the English Channel.

The smugglers have been using the cynical tactics which they have long employed in the Mediterranean. Migrants, including small children, are taken out into the open sea in leaky, dangerous craft, and abandoned there so that they will be picked up by the British authorities.

The smugglers can count on open borders campaigners in Britain to put pressure on us to let them jump the legal immigration queue. If, as seems inevitable, migrants die thanks to the actions of these crooks, such pressure will only grow. But now, as this problem intensifies, there appears to be no British Government plan to deal with it.

The obvious solution is cooperation with the French to prevent the migrants reaching British waters.

But such arrangements require political engagement at the highest level. The French cannot be expected to take the issue seriously if we do not. And that requires the active presence of Home Secretary Sajid Javid.

Mr Javid has correctly declared the problem to be a ‘major incident’, and has now rightly hur- ried home from an ill- timed foreign holiday. But with such a grave crisis in the offing, should he have packed his bags sooner?