O VOO DO CORVO

 

London Playbook: Channel tragedy — SpAd wars — Spotted at the Spec

BY ALEX WICKHAM

November 25, 2021 8:00 am

https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/channel-tragedy-spad-wars-spotted-at-the-spec/

 

DRIVING THE DAY

CHANNEL TRAGEDY: The British and French governments are both facing searching questions this morning about whether they could have prevented the deaths of dozens of people, including five women and two children, who drowned after their boat sank in the Channel on Wednesday. The French government initially said 31 people had died, but later wouldn’t confirm that number to POLITICO. Around 10 more migrants have died while attempting the journey in recent weeks. Boris Johnson spoke on the phone with French President Emmanuel Macron last night as the two leaders agreed to “step up” cooperation to address the crisis. But London and Paris will struggle to defend themselves today against the conclusion that a tragedy like this has been inevitable for months — and that it is the direct result of a deadly political failure by the governments on both sides of the Channel.

 

What we know so far: The details are still not entirely clear this morning. The boat launched from close to Calais and was one of around 25 to leave France for England yesterday, BBC Newsnight’s Lewis Goodall reports. French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin described the vessel as “very flimsy” and compared it to a paddling pool. There are conflicting reports as to how it sank. Regional French news website La Voix Du Nord claimed it was hit by a large ship. The horror emerged when French fishermen spotted around 15 bodies floating in the water at around 2 p.m. French police have arrested four people suspected of being involved in the people smuggling.

 

UK response: Boris Johnson last night warned the people smuggling gangs responsible for organizing the Channel journeys were “getting away with murder” as he criticized the French government’s failure to prevent crossings. The prime minister said he was “shocked, appalled and deeply saddened” by the “disaster,” insisting the current French operations to patrol beaches — supported by £54 million of U.K. taxpayer money — were “not enough” as he again called on Macron to allow British police or Border Force to assist. “We have had difficulties persuading some of our partners, particularly the French, to do things in a way that we think the situation deserves,” Johnson said. France has rejected that offer on sovereignty grounds, but a U.K. government source told Playbook they hoped Paris would reconsider its position in light of Wednesday’s events. A diplomatic source tells the Mail’s David Barrett and Jason Groves that Macron did not respond to the renewed offer of British boots on the ground during the call.

 

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Happening today: Borders and Immigration Minister Kevin Foster is on the morning broadcast round where he will be setting out exactly what Britain wants France to do to help. Home Secretary Priti Patel is expected to speak to Darmanin early this morning. A minister is expected to make a statement to the Commons later.

 

French response: Macron last night requested “an emergency meeting of EU ministers concerned by the migratory challenge” and called for “immediate reinforcement” from EU border agency Frontex in the region. “Everything will be put in place to find and convict those responsible,” the French president said. Darmanin said in his statement: “It is a grand national grief for France, Europe and humanity to see these people perish at sea because of these smugglers.” POLITICO’s Thibault Spirlet and Pierre-Paul Bermingham have their quotes. Darmanin also suggested in a press conference that Britain and France were failing to cooperate and said the U.K.’s financial contribution to the problem was “minimal,” the Telegraph reports.

 

Abandoned Afghans making the journey: The Times’ Emma Yeomans has an essential piece from Dungeness beach in Kent, reporting that 600 migrants successfully crossed the Channel on Wednesday. Yeomans’ piece is difficult to read: “The asylum seekers, a mixture of Iraqi Kurds and Afghans, included small children and babies. Among the migrants was an Afghan soldier who had worked with British forces. His family had decided to risk their lives to cross the Channel after they ‘waited so long for help’ from Britain.” One man named Sanowbar was a special forces officer in the Afghan Army who worked with British and American soldiers. His brother told Yeomans: “Because he worked with the British, this is problems with the Taliban. All the time, this is why I come with my children. We have all the documents, but we waited so long for help.” U.K. ministers have been strongly criticized for failing to establish an Afghan resettlement scheme three months after the Western capitulation to the Taliban.

 

Are safe routes the answer? The central charge laid at the British government over the migrant crisis, as argued by the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush among others yesterday, is that it has failed to allow safe routes for asylum seekers to travel to Britain, leaving them no option but to risk their lives. Former BBC Home Affairs Correspondent Danny Shaw tweeted some measures the U.K. government could pursue to improve the situation: More safe routes to the U.K. for refugees … a U.K.-France intelligence command based in northern France to improve cooperation and end inflammatory rhetoric … allowing migrants in France to make asylum claims from there … more money for the asylum system to clear the current 15-month backlog.

 

No, says Whitehall: A U.K. government source rejected the “safe routes” argument to Playbook last night. They said it would just encourage more people to come to northern France, and that demand would always outstrip supply so even more people would end up attempting to cross the Channel. They also argued this approach would increase those risking even more dangerous small boat crossings in the Mediterranean. The source said the home secretary’s immediate priority was securing an agreement with France on how better to police the beaches, and then passing the Nationality and Borders Bill through parliament in order to crack down on some of the so-called pull factors for migrants. The Times’ Steve Swinford and Henry Zeffman report Johnson privately suggested to MPs that he was considering legal reforms to make crossings harder. “Watch this space,” the PM reportedly said.

 

Pressure on Patel: After months of being unable to produce viable solutions either on the logistics of physically stopping the crossings, or on finding a third country to hold migrants while their claims are processed, Priti Patel is under huge political pressure this morning. In July 2019 she promised to fix the small boats problem by spring 2020. That obviously did not happen. Just a few days ago the Times’ Matt Dathan quoted a government minister in a different department: “Priti entered the Home Office hoping for a quick fix that she could hail as a major success. But her ambitious promises now look like they’re going to backfire. She has herself to blame for Channel crossings becoming the single biggest issue that will define her time as home secretary.” Dathan’s piece includes an in-depth assessment of her attempts to grip the crisis — including the unfeasibility of her controversial policy to “turn back” the boats.

 

What Labour is saying: Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said last night: “This is a sobering day for the U.K. government, France and the wider international community. Lives have been lost in the most terrible of circumstances. This is the most poignant of wake-up calls to the U.K. government, which must act to take the matter seriously and prevent people continuing to risk their lives in these dangerous waters.”

 

Could France do more? The French authorities are also facing particularly difficult questions as more damning evidence emerges about their operation on the ground. Darmanin insisted that 780 French police officers had succeeded in preventing 671 migrants from setting off on Wednesday. But with around 600 reportedly making the journey, as well as the dozens who died and those who survived from the capsized boat, it is clear they failed to prevent a significant proportion of the crossings.

 

Turning a blind eye: A striking photo on the front of several of today’s British newspapers leads to the accusation that the French authorities are making little effort to prevent crossings. The picture appears to show French police officers sitting in a car looking on as people traffickers and migrants carry a boat to the sea. The Sun front page calls the image “shameful,” the Metro asks “Why didn’t France stop them?” while the Mail and the Express both go with Johnson’s line about letting the traffickers “get away with murder.”

 

In their read on how the day unfolded … the Telegraph’s Rob Mendick, Patrick Sawyer and Henry Samuel write: “Hours before the disaster, the French police had stood and watched; done nothing to prevent a flimsy rubber dinghy from launching into the Channel for the perilous journey to Britain. They had turned a blind eye, seemingly unconcerned by the huge risks being taken by the 40 or so desperate migrants carrying the vessel into the water.” Pages six and seven of the Mail have the full picture set — it appears to show the police car drive toward the boat as it’s being carried toward the sea, before the officers allow the migrants to go into the water as they turn around and head back to land. As it approached England, the boat was later escorted to safety by the RNLI charity.

 

Calais camps: The Telegraph’s Jamie Johnson has previously reported that sometimes it’s even worse than the French authorities turning a blind eye. Last year he witnessed a French Navy vessel “shepherding” a migrant boat toward British waters before abandoning it, “a practice the French have long been accused of doing, but which has never been independently witnessed by a journalist, until now.” Johnson also tweeted yesterday about the “push factors” that incentivize migrants to leave France: “French police clearing out camps, firing tear gas and rubber bullets. The camps are dangerous places and rife with armed smugglers. I saw a knife fight once. There are small children living there. Their parents will risk it all to leave.”

 

Looking at the numbers … it is hard to dispute that France is failing to prevent large numbers of crossings. Nearly 26,000 people have successfully crossed the Channel in small boats in 2021. That is more than three times the 2020 number and around 10 times the 2019 total. This month 179 small boats have made successful journeys — that is the highest number in any month this year. The International Organization for Migration said Wednesday’s tragedy was the largest single loss of life in the Channel since it began collecting data seven years ago.