Royal Navy called in to stem migrant Channel crossings

THE Royal Navy has been called in to help tackle the Channel migrant crisis after more than 1,000 people reached the UK in the last 10 days.

Last night, the Ministry of Defence announced it was sending a specialist team to “support the daily running of Border Force operations”, after another 90 people made the crossing yesterday.

It is the first time since January 2019 that Navy personnel have been deployed to stop the crossings. So far, no Navy ships have been requested, but the MoD said nothing was “off the table” if the flow could not be stemmed.

Pressure has been increasing on the Government to address the numbers crossing into UK waters. More than 4,500 had made the dangerous journey this year, compared with 1,800 last year, and fewer than 400 in 2018.

In a thinly veiled dig at the Home Office, an MoD source told The Sunday

Telegraph last night that “civilian authorities are not used to fast paced, large scale and constantly changing situations in the same way as the military. That’s what we do”.

The RAF has been helping Border Force in the Channel with A400M and P-8 Poseidon aircraft tracking small boats. Now, Shadow R1 aircraft, an intelligence gathering plane equipped with Electro Optical and Infra-Red sensors will also operate in the coming weeks.

In a video conference call with Conservative MPs this week, Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, was alleged to have said: “France is a racist country. They would rather come to England.”

French politicians said the claims were hateful, according to The Mail on

Sunday, but sources close to Ms Patel sought to play down the row, saying: “Priti made clear these were migrants’ views – not hers.”