Britain should follow Australia in returning Channel boat migrants to their start points, says ex-Prime Minister
Britain should follow Australia’s example and send all Channel migrants back to France, says the country’s former Prime Minister.
Tony Abbott, who introduced a controversial policy of towing migrant boats back to Indonesian waters, said the only way to stop them coming to the UK was to ensure they “never arrive” - or are swiftly sent back if they did make land.
“The French may not like to hear ‘they shall not pass’ from Britons, even though ‘ils ne passeront pas’ is a resonant phrase from their history,” he writes in an online article for The Daily Telegraph.
“Still, in the long run, this is for France’s good too; as the only way to clear the camps in Calais is to ensure that none of their occupants can ever get across the Channel and stay.”
Mr Abbott was the Prime Minister who introduced the controversial “turnback” policy where migrant boats were towed to Indonesian waters with just enough fuel to get back to land rather than set back out into open sea.
So far this year, nearly 1,800 migrants have made it to the UK on small boats across the Channel including a record 741 in May, compared with 1,890 for all of last year.
He said the Australian policy including keeping would-be migrants on Australian ships until it was safe to send them back and change laws to put border security ahead of asylum rights when challenged by refugee advocates.
He said: “How can it be wrong to save lives at sea by denying the people smugglers a product to sell?
“This is the fundamental truth that policy makers in Britain need to understand. To stop people from setting out for Britain in unseaworthy boats, you have to ensure that they never arrive; or that if they do arrive they are swiftly sent back.
“Especially if people setting out for Britain in overloaded dinghies are going to be rescued and taken where they want to go, the boats will keep coming;
“Even though no one has a right to set sail from France to demand a new life in Britain; and even though the French have no right to wave-on their problems to Britain just because they are unwilling or incapable of controlling their own borders.
“Plainly, this will require a degree of determination and planning on Britain’s part.”
Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, is to introduce new laws and renegotiate agreements with the EU to enable the UK to return migrants to France.
It comes as a Deltapoll for campaign group Migrationwatch found 60 per cent of respondents think the Government is not taking sufficient measures to deal with the problem. Only 17% said enough was being done.
