Tim Loughton MP attacks the French for failing to stop the migrant trade

With calm weather in the English Channel currently leading to record numbers of migrant crossings,  one Conservative MP has attacked the French for not doing enough to stop the flow of boats.

Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme this morning, the Conservative MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, Tim Loughton said, “We know the only real solution is for the French to do what they are legally entitled, and also legally obliged to do, and that is to intercept the boats when they are in the water and take the passengers back to French territory”.

“That is the only really effective thing that is going to stop this trade stone dead, and it is the one thing that the French refuse to do, because there is a lot of politics in all this”

Loughton said, “It is absolutely in the power of the French to stop this miserable trade”.

However Loughton stopped short of calling for boats to be pushed back, accepting that the practice was hugely hazardous and had shown limited success when being used by the Greeks in the Aegean. Loughton said, “These are really flimsy boats and if you get a Border Force Cutter pulling up alongside, there are chances of these capsizing, and then you are going to have fatalities”.

There are no official figures of the numbers of migrants that have died in attempts to cross the channel.  Previous research by the Institute of Race Relations has suggested that 292 people died trying to cross by vehicle, tunnel and over the water between 1999 and 2020.

It is estimated that some 5,000 people have crossed the Channel by boat in Novembers 2021.  This included a record daily number of 1,185 on Thursday 18 November.