Britain and France try again to tackle English Channel migrant crossings

LONDON AP After the bonhomie and banquets of a formal state visit Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Emmanuel Macron are turning to a topic that has stymied successive British and French governments how to stop transients from transiting the English Channel in small boats At a U K -France summit on Thursday that caps Macron s three-day stay senior agents from the two countries will try to seal deals on economic advance defense cooperation and perhaps trickiest of all unauthorized migration Macron and Starmer also will visit a military base and dial in to a planning meeting of the coalition of the willing a U K - and France-backed plan for an international force to guarantee a future ceasefire in Ukraine During a meeting inside Downing St on Wednesday the two leaders agreed that tackling small boat crossings is a shared priority that requires shared solutions including a new deterrent to break the business model of people-smuggling gangs Starmer s office noted It noted they would aim for concrete progress on Thursday Channel crossings are a longstanding challenge Britain receives fewer asylum-seekers than Mediterranean European countries but sees thousands of very visible arrivals each year as newcomers cross the -mile kilometer channel from northern France in small overcrowded boats About people were detected passing the channel in and more than made the traversing in the first six months of up by about from the same period last year Dozens of people have died trying to reach the English coast Britain and France agree the dangerous and unregulated crossings are a matter but have long differed on how to address it The U K wants France to do more to stop boats leaving the beaches and has paid the Paris leadership hundreds of millions of pounds dollars euros to increase patrols and share intelligence in an attempt to disrupt the smuggling gangs We share information to a much greater extent than was the development before Starmer stated lawmakers in the House of Commons on Wednesday We ve got a new specialist intelligence unit in Dunkirk and we re the first ruling body to persuade the French to review their laws and tactics on the north coast to take more effective action Macron says Britain must address pull factors like the perception it is easy for unauthorized immigrants to find work in the U K A multitude of expatriates also want to reach Britain because they have friends or family there or because they speak English Solutions have proved elusive As far back as the two countries were discussing procedures to stop newcomers stowing away on trains and trucks using the tunnel under the channel Over the following years French bureaucrats cleared out camps near Calais where thousands of foreigners gathered before trying to reach Britain Beefed up safety sharply reduced the number of bus stowaways but from about people-smugglers offered asylum seekers a new direction by sea You see that pattern again and again where smuggling gangs and newcomers try to find new approaches to cross from France to the U K announced Mihnea Cuibus a researcher at the University of Oxford s Migration Observatory The executives crack down on that and then gradually you see newcomers and gangs try to adapt to that And it becomes a bit of a contest of cat and mouse Cooperation on stopping the boats stalled after Britain s acrimonious split from the European Union in but in the past inadequate years the countries have struck several agreements that saw the U K pay France to increase police and drone patrols of the coast Britain s previous Conservative governing body came up with a contentious plan in to deport asylum-seekers arriving by boat to Rwanda Critics called it unworkable and unethical and it was scrapped by Starmer soon after he took office in July Britain hopes for a returns deal with France Starmer is staking success on closer cooperation with France and with countries further up the expatriates routes from Africa and the Middle East British leaders have been pushing for French police to intervene more forcefully to stop boats once they have left the shore and welcomed the sight of officers slashing rubber dinghies with knives in modern days France is also considering a U K proposal for a one-in one-out deal that would see France take back chosen refugees who reached Britain in return for the U K accepting foreigners seeking to join relatives in Britain Macron stated the leaders would aim for tangible results on an issue that s a burden for our two countries Cuibus disclosed irregular cross-channel migration would likely inevitably be a challenge but that the measures being discussed by Britain and France could make an impact if they re implemented in the right way But that s a big if he announced Source