Mayors in northern France are calling for the deal that allows Britain to carry out immigration checks in Calais to be scrapped.
For 20 years, the British Border Force has been able to examine a traveller’s documents before they board ferries to the UK.
A coalition of French mayors wants to end the agreement, blaming the migrant crisis on Britain’s flawed asylum system and failure to crack down on illegal working.
They argue that both the migrants and the local population in northern France face an intolerable situation that is being fuelled by the lure of crossing the Channel to live and work in the UK.
They have called to scrap the 2003 Le Touquet agreement between the UK and France which allowed UK immigration checks on French territory.
They have also called for the UK to agree to open up legal routes to Britain in an attempt to stop the Channel crossings by migrants in small boats, a proposal Sir Keir Starmer’s Government has rejected.
‘The situation is urgent’
Rishi Sunak signed a £500 million deal with France to directly fund French police operating on the beaches to counter the crossings.
It initially led to a fall of around a third in the number of successful attempts but numbers crossing have now passed 33,500, up more than 20 per cent on last year.
Sony Clinquart, mayor of Grand-Fort-Philippe, said: “We’re in the midst of hypocrisy: we’re talking about a border, but it doesn’t exist because the British authorities accept all the migrants who arrive.
“If we don’t sound the alarm, nothing will happen. The situation is urgent, it’s been going on for too long. If we had a technical solution, we’d already have succeeded.”
Guy Allemand, the mayor of Sangatte, said: “We’ve had video surveillance cameras installed, paid for by the British, to discourage people smugglers, but they’ve never worked.
“There’s no point in paying thousands of euros, we need to raise the debate with legislative changes and stop crisis management. I’ve been elected for 15 years and the situation is only getting worse.”
Humanitarian reception centres
The mayor of Calais, Natacha Bouchart, said: “We’ve got to get to grips with the British, that’s enough.”
Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, accepted that the UK needed stronger action on illegal working but said that since Labour came to power it had increased the number of immigration enforcement visits by 20 per cent.
It has also increased the number of returns of migrants with no right to stay in the UK by 20 per cent since the election, with some 10,000 removed since July.
The collective of mayors also called for the introduction of an immigration prefect, the creation of a transport police force to “reassure” the population and the establishment of humanitarian reception centres outside the coastal strip to take care of migrants before they arrive.
They called for additional resources and the reimbursement of expenses incurred by the municipalities concerned from their own funds.
