Rishi Sunak is under intense pressure to do more to tackle the small boats crisis following the “appalling and preventable” tragedy that saw the deaths of six people when a vessel sank off the coast of France on Saturday.
Fresh calls for action came as it emerged that a further 509 people crossed the English Channel in 10 small boats on Saturday, despite the perilous nature of the crossing, bringing the total for the year so far to 16,679.
Senior Conservatives joined Labour in attacking the “dysfunctional” Home Office for failing to tackle the “out of control” asylum system – but some Tory MPs appeared to blame the French for Saturday’s tragic deaths.
Tim Loughton, a senior figure on the home affairs select committee, said that more needed to be done by both the Home Office and the French authorities.
“Without the French actually intercepting and detaining those boats, then we have a problem stopping that,” he told Times Radio. He suggested that if the French intervened “it would stop this whole vile trade absolutely overnight”, adding: “What will it take for the French to agree to do that?”
Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said people-traffickers were “running rings” around the government as she described the Home Office as “increasingly shambolic and completely incompetent”.
The Labour Party wants to strike a migrant returns agreement with the EU after the so-called Dublin regulation – which allowed irregular migrants to be returned to the nation of first arrival – was lost during the Brexit process.
Some Tory MPs criticised France following Saturday’s deaths, amid reports that a French warship, the PSP Cormoran, was monitoring the overloaded small boat in the Channel when it sank. Fisherman Matthew Coker told The Mail on Sunday that the military boat was “escorting” the vessel.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith told the newspaper that the French policy of escorting small boats to English waters was “madness”, adding: “I think the whole thing encourages them to risk the journey more, which is a mistake – you see what happens when they do that. They end up dying.”
A French lifeboat enters the port of Calais following the rescue operation on Saturday— (Reuters)
Former Tory party chair Sir Jake Berry renewed right-wing calls for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) after the Channel tragedy, claiming that doing so could help to “solve the issue” by allowing the long-delayed Rwanda scheme to come into effect.
But former deputy prime minister David Lidington warned that voters would be “seriously repelled” by the idea of leaving the ECHR. He said the Tories are at risk of being branded the “nasty party” once again.
“There will be a subsection of the electorate who will like this, and want a hard line, however rational or irrational that policy is,” the former deputy PM told The Observer.
He added: “But I think that they will be at least matched, and probably exceeded, by the number of people in seats, particularly suburban seats and home counties seats, who will be at best unimpressed and at worse seriously repelled by this kind of rhetoric and such a policy.”
Pulling out of the ECHR would put the UK at odds with most European nations, and could cause serious complications in relation to the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland and the post-Brexit trade deal with the EU.
Suella Braverman is facing calls to resign over the handling of the migrant crisis— (PA Wire)
Mr Loughton said the “dysfunctionality” in the Home Office dates back years, and that the department “has got to do a lot better in speeding up the processing times of those people who do then come to the UK, to see whether they have a legitimate asylum claim or not”.
He said the government’s “small boats week” was “probably not a good idea”, adding: “It was a hostage to fortune, and clearly it depends on how many people are risking their lives coming across the Channel, which is dependent on the weather and how people-smugglers are operating.”
Investigations continue into the tragic Channel incident in which six people died. A further 59 were rescued and two may still be missing after an overloaded vessel carrying migrants got into difficulty near Sangatte on Saturday.
Charity Care4Calais said the incident was an “appalling and preventable tragedy”, while the Refugee Council warned that “more people will die” unless more safe routes to the UK are established.
Home secretary Suella Braverman described the incident as a “tragic loss of life” and said she had chaired a meeting with Border Force officials later on Saturday.
The ‘Bibby Stockholm’ barge had to be evacuated on Friday after bacteria were found to be present in its water supply— (PA)
It comes as the plan to house migrants on the Bibby Stockholm barge was described as an “utter farce” when it emerged that the first 39 people to be installed on the vessel in Dorset had had to be removed from it after Legionella bacteria were found in the water supply.
But ministers still intend to locate further vessels elsewhere in the UK for the purpose of housing migrants, according to The Sunday Telegraph.
Welsh secretary David TC Davies said on Sunday that it was “quite possible” more migrants will be housed on barges because the government has “no problem in principle with hiring barges”.
Calling the six Channel deaths a “tragedy”, Mr Davies claimed that the “very quick action that the government took this week to remove people, because of the possibility that legionnaires’ could spread, actually demonstrates how we’re putting the safety of people first”.
Senior Tory David Davis said the “startling incompetence” of the Home Office had been revealed. Tory MP Scott Benton, who is currently suspended from the party, said that the barge plan had become a “complete and utter farce”. Senior moderate Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said the Home Office should be broken up into different departments.
There have been calls for home secretary Suella Braverman to be sacked. One former Tory minister told The Independent on Friday that Ms Braverman should be fired for “losing control” of the Channel crisis.
But right-wing Tory MP Sir John Hayes, a leading figure in the Conservative Party’s Common Sense Group, said he remained in favour of “concentrating arrivals” and called the use of barges to house migrants “a great idea”.
