A damaged inflatable dinghy is seen on Plage du Braek, near Loon Beach in Dunkerque the day after 27 migrants died when their dinghy deflated as they attempted to cross the English Channel. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
A damaged inflatable dinghy is seen on Plage du Braek, near Loon Beach in Dunkerque the day after 27 migrants died when their dinghy deflated as they attempted to cross the English Channel. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
Thanks for following the live updates. The blog will be closing shortly, so below is a summary of the main news of the day after at least 27 people died trying to cross the English Channel.
It is up to France to stop refugees crossing the Channel in small boats, Priti Patel has said after 27 people, mostly Kurds from Iraq or Iran, drowned trying to reach the UK in an inflatable boat.Making a statement to MPs, the home secretary said that while there was no rapid solution to the issue of people seeking to make the crossing, she had reiterated a UK offer to send more police to France.
Patel is facing three legal challenges over her controversial plans to push back refugees on small boats in the Channel who are trying to reach the UK. Several charities including Care4Calais and Channel Rescue are involved in two linked challenges arguing that Patel’s plans are unlawful under human rights and maritime laws. Freedom from Torture is involved in a third challenge.
France said on Thursday it will beef up the surveillance of its northern shores, but migrants huddling in makeshift camps said neither that nor a tragic drowning the day before would stop them from trying to cross the Channel to Britain.
French president Emmanuel Macron also appealed to neighboring European countries to do more to stop illegal migration into France.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said authorities are “not doing enough” to diminish the “power” of people traffickers aiding migrants to embark on sea crossings to the UK.
Jeremy Corbyn has called on the government to concentrate on the causes of mass migration, rather than trying to stop people getting to the UK.
Priti Patel has said she will ask the BBC and other media to reflect on their use of language after widespread use of the term “migrant” to describe the people who drowned in the Channel on Wednesday.
Labour MP Olivia Blake has criticised the home secretary, Priti Patel, for her stance on refugees crossing the Channel.
At least 27 people have tragically died in the Channel but in her statement today & the #AntiRefugeeBill the Home Secretary doubled down on the approach that led to their deaths.
Turning back boats doesn’t save lives or protect people from traffickers; safe routes for asylum do.
Earlier on Thursday, Patel said it is up to France to stop crossings in small boats. Patel told the Commons she had just spoken to her French counterpart, Gérald Darmanin, following the disaster in which 17 men, seven women and three adolescents – two boys and a girl – were killed.
“I’ve offered to work with France to put officers on the ground and do absolutely whatever is necessary to secure the area so that vulnerable people do not risk their lives by getting into unseaworthy boats,” she said.
France said on Thursday it will beef up the surveillance of its northern shores, but migrants huddling in makeshift camps said neither that nor a tragic drowning the day before would stop them from trying to cross the Channel to Britain.
Seventeen men, seven women and three teenagers died on Wednesday when their dinghy deflated in the Channel, one of many such risky journeys attempted in rickety, overloaded boats by people fleeing poverty and war in Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond.
The deaths deepened animosity between Britain and France, already at odds over Brexit, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying France was at fault and French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin accusing Britain of “bad immigration management”.
With relations fraught over Brexit and immigration, much of the focus on Thursday was on who should bear responsibility, even if both sides vowed to seek joint solutions.
President Emmanuel Macron defended Paris’s actions but said France was merely a transit country for many migrants and more European cooperation was needed to tackle illegal immigration.
The day after 27 people died trying to reach Britain in an inflatable dinghy, charities said the Channel dividing Britain from France was sure to claim more migrants risking everything to flee war and poverty across the Middle East and Africa.
“Unless we see this as a catalyst for proper systemic change, this will keep happening again and it will get worse,” said Kay Marsh, who works for the migrant charity Samphire in Dover, Britain’s gateway to Europe. “The deterrents aren’t working.”
The UK will not be able to take back full control of its immigration and asylum policy unless the government scraps the Human Rights Act, Conservative MP Scott Benton said.
The MP for Blackpool South said the deadliest day of the crisis on record underlines “why we need to do everything possible to make these dangerous routes unviable”, including scrapping the Human Rights Act.
He said: “There is nothing compassionate or moral about allowing criminal gangs to exploit vulnerable people.
“The leader of the House has already mentioned the Borders Bill but I fear that we won’t be able to gain back full control of our immigration and asylum policy unless we scrap the Human Rights Act (HRA).”
Benton asked for a parliamentary debate “on alternatives to the HRA”. Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg acknowledged “concerns” about the Human Rights Act have been a “theme” during the session of Business Questions, where Benton’s comments were made.
He said: “We must be able to govern ourselves in this country in a way that secures safety and wellbeing for people trying to come here and people who are already here.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said authorities are “not doing enough” to diminish the “power” of people traffickers aiding migrants to embark on sea crossings to the UK.
He told the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast: “To be honest, I’m sick of the Home Secretary playing to the headlines on this with grand statements about what she’s going to do, turning boats back and all the rest of it, but actually not achieving anything in relation to this issue.
“We need to be working with the French in the camps, working upstream on law enforcement because in the camps, among the problems, is the pull, the power of the people smugglers is far greater than those of the authorities because we are not doing enough work to break that link.
“If the people smugglers say, ‘It is your turn, you’re on the boat this morning, here it is’, then desperate people who have got as far as the northern coast of France are more likely to do what the smugglers are telling them to do than the authorities giving them the support that they need.”
The National Crime Agency has released a statement on the events that unfolded on Wednesday, with their deputy director Andrea Wilson saying:
What happened in the English Channel yesterday was a tragedy, and our first thoughts have to be with the families and loved ones of those who died.
The exact circumstances of this incident remain under investigation, but we know a high percentage of these attempted crossings are facilitated by organised criminal networks, who do not care about the safety or security of those they transport. They think nothing of putting vulnerable people in incredibly dangerous situations, just so they can exploit them for profit.
A French judicial investigation into these deaths is now underway and we have offered our French counterparts the full support and resources of the NCA. Our international liaison officers are already working closely with French law enforcement partners.
Together we are determined to find those responsible for these deaths so that they can be held to account for their actions.
A new body was found on the northern French coast, newspaper La Voix du Nord reported on Thursday, saying that no link could be established to a drowning a day earlier, when 27 migrants died trying to cross the English channel in a rubber boat.
The French newspaper reported on its website that a corpse had been found on the beach of Sangatte, west of Calais. It said that the identity of the victim was not known and that the state of the body indicated that it had spent more than 24 hours in the water.
430 people "at risk of drowning the Mediterranean"
Hundreds of people are at risk of drowning in the Mediterranean, in a boat off the coast of north Africa that is currently disintegrating, according to Alarm Phone.
In a reminder that the Channel is not the only European sea where people are continuing to die as they try to make desperate crossings, a new post by Alarm Phone says there are about 430 on board the boat, including dozens of children.
Alarm Phone is a hotline for people on boats in distress. It does not coordinate or undertake rescues, but raises awareness of crises. The post said that activists had repeatedly informed authorities in Rome and Malta of the emergency. “MRCC Rome has informed us that they were not the ‘competent authority’ in this case, while RCC Malta simply hangs up the phone when we try to relay information on the case,” it says.
Jeremy Corbyn has called on the government to concentrate on the causes of mass migration, rather than trying to stop people getting to the UK.
During the Commons debate on yesterday’s tragedy in the Channel, the former leader of the Labour party, who currently sits as an independent MP, said: “Does the home secretary (Priti Patel) accept that the only way in which people traffickers and gangs can operate is because of the absolute desperation of people across Europe and indeed across the world?
“And instead of concentrating on more frontiers, more barbed wire, more surveillance, not just in this country but all across Europe, what we should be doing is looking at the causes of asylum in the first place: the environmental disasters, the wars, the abuse of human rights, the poverty?”
Priti Patel replied that the government is working to address these issues with the international community, adding: “Migrants are not just in the hands of people smugglers, they are travelling through safe countries where there are functioning asylum systems in these safe countries where they could claim asylum. That also is something that all international partners should be supporting.”
Amnesty International has called on the UK government to “take decisive action” to prevent more deaths in the Channel, as it warned that the dangerous journeys take place because the government will not provide a safe alternative for people to exercise their right to claim asylum.
In a statement responding to the quarterly immigration statistics, released earlier on Thursday, Amnesty said deaths of people crossing the Channel have risen because the government provides no safe and legal routes for people to enter the UK.
Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s Refugee and Migrant Rights director, said:
In the wake of the devastating tragedy at the Channel yesterday, the UK government must urgently take decisive action to prevent more loss of life.
The UK must make it a priority to share responsibility with other countries to receive people into its asylum system – they must do this by providing safe and legal routes and encourage others to do the same.
We must remember that dangerous journeys take place because the government provides no safe alternative for people to exercise their right to seek asylum here.
The Afghanistan Citizenship Resettlement Scheme is one example of the government’s fundamental failure to provide safe routes – a scheme announced in August that has still not opened – ministers cannot even guarantee it will open anytime soon.
The UK’s failure to play its part in providing protection to people who are fleeing conflict and persecution is even more distressing at a time when the Home Office is trying to push through its draconian nationality and borders bill. This new policy will further exacerbate the asylum system and continue to punish and exclude people seeking safety.
If the government is truly concerned with tackling these gangs and their abuse of people, they must set up safe asylum routes, so people no longer need to depend on smugglers.
We desperately need a new approach to asylum – including genuine Anglo-French efforts to devise safe asylum routes, a major overhaul of the painfully slow applications system, an end to the use of dangerous and unsuitable accommodation facilities like Napier Barracks, and a political approach based on real humanity.
Priti Patel has said she will ask the BBC and other media to reflect on their use of language after widespread use of the term “migrant” to describe the people who drowned in the Channel on Wednesday.
The home secretary made the undertaking after an intervention by the SNP MP Brendan O’Hara, who said: “Last night I tuned in to the BBC 10 o’clock news to get the latest on this terrible disaster and I was absolutely appalled when a presenter informed me that around 30 migrants had drowned.
“Migrants don’t drown. People drown. Men, women and children drown.
“So will the secretary of state join me in asking the BBC News editorial team and any other news outlet thinking of using that term to reflect on their use of such dehumanising language and afford these poor people the respect that they deserve.”
Patel said: “Even during the Afghan operations and Op Pitting I heard a lot of language that quite frankly seemed to be inappropriate around people who were fleeing.
