Migrant Channel crossings have hit a record high as those about to embark on the dangerous journey shouted: ‘This is for Rishi Sunak.’
French police simply stood and watched a group setting off from the country’s northern coast yesterday as numbers continue to rise.
Some 255 migrants made the journey across the Channel on Sunday – taking the total for the year so far to 16,457 – according to the Home Office.
The previous record for arrivals by the end of July was 16,420 in 2022. Last year 14,732 came in the same period.
The rising numbers make the challenge to Sir Keir Starmer’s new Labour Government clear.
So far his most significant move on immigration has been to scrap the Conservative threat to fly asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Yesterday a so-called ‘taxi boat’ was seen motoring out of the harbour at Gravelines, near Dunkirk. One of the occupants of the half-full dinghy shouted to onlookers: ‘This is for Rishi Sunak’ – perhaps in reference to the former prime minister’s now junked policy.
When the dinghy reached the sea, it simply turned right and headed back towards the neighbouring beach.
A large group of migrants – including women, children, and even an infant in a chest-mounted baby carrier – emerged from the dunes and walked towards the sea. They then waded in, and waited for the ‘taxi boat’ to reach them.
When it did, as many as possible clambered aboard. As witnessed before by the Daily Mail, police on the beach watched without lifting a finger.
French officers, funded with £100million a year of UK taxpayers’ money to ‘stop the boats’, are instructed not to interfere with dinghies already afloat or to hold back migrants already in the water for fear of being culpable for drownings.
Yesterday police instead focused on stopping children and family groups from reaching the water.
Volunteers from refugee charity Utopia 56 were also at the scene yesterday, checking boats at sea were not in trouble, offering fresh clothes to those who failed to board and monitoring police tactics.
Volunteer Pablo Eymard-Picollec said of the families who turned back: ‘I think a few police officers talked to them and told them to stay on the beach.
‘The boat was really, really crowded, so I think they assumed it was too risky for them to go.’
Early on Sunday one migrant died and another 34 were rescued by French coastguards after a ‘heavily loaded’ boat got into difficulty.
In the Commons, Reform UK MP Lee Anderson asked: ‘Does the Home Secretary agree with me it’s time now to stop paying the French any more money until they stop being complicit in this evil trade?’
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the crossings were ‘extremely dangerous’ as she mentioned the latest death, adding: ‘Criminal gangs are deliberately cramming boats to maximise their profits, and have been getting away with it for far too long.
‘That is why we need a new Border Security Command in place, to work not simply with the French police but also with forces and organisations right across Europe, and beyond, to pursue the gangs and to prevent the boats reaching the French coast in the first place.’