BRITAIN AND FRANCE TO SPEED UP EFFORTS TO TACKLE SMALL BOAT CROSSINGS – The influx of migrants has become a major political issue for the UK
Home Secretary James Cleverly and his French counterpart Gerald Darmanin agreed to accelerate the deployment of aerial surveillance equipment aimed at reducing the number of migrants crossing to Britain in small boats.
In recent years tens of thousands of migrants have sought to reach Britain from France’s north coast, making dangerous and sometimes fatal attempts to navigate one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes in small rubber dinghies.
The influx of migrants has become a major political issue for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has pledged to “Stop the Boats”, and pushed him to develop plans – currently mired in legal disputes – to deter migrants by sending them to Rwanda.
Both Cleverly and Darmanin agreed to build closer ties in law enforcement and discussed convening a meeting of interior ministers from a group of northern European countries, called the Calais Group, on the topic of migration