𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

French officials were ordered to stop talks with the UK about Channel migrant crossings because the nation had been left out of a nuclear submarine deal, bombshell documents have revealed. Paris felt so affronted by the UK, US and Australia working together on the AUKUS programme that they told security officials they could not hold discussions with Border Force “at all”.

The shock admission, made in a submission to the Cranston Inquiry, revealed the scale of the rift between the UK and French Governments. Dan O’Mahoney, the former Clandestine Threat Commander, said: “I recall having had a meeting with the Prefet in the Nord de France region, which was the first meeting I had with her for three months. There was a period of time prior to that where the French officials were told they could not communicate with us at all. I think the trigger point for that was the AUKUS submarine deal.”

Australia formed the AUKUS security pact with the US and the UK – aimed at maintaining Western influence in the Asia-Pacific – in September 2021. That saw Australia end a £48bn deal with France to instead access US nuclear-powered submarine technology. Paris called the deal a “stab in the back”.

And, in a sign of how ties between Britain and France had already been deteriorating, Gerald Darmanin, the then Interior Minister, scrapped a proposed migrant returns deal between the UK and Paris, despite being told it could end the crisis. And France vehemently opposed British plans to turn dinghies around despite tens of thousands of people arriving on their northern coast.

Mr O’Mahoney told the inquiry: “There was an agreement with the French, known as the Cherbourg agreement and I think sometimes it was referred to as Op Bowthorpe, Operation Bowthorpe, and that was an arrangement whereby the French had agreed and worked up an operational protocol such that if we rescued migrants close to French waters, we could, on a trial basis, move them to Dunkirk and disembark them at Dunkirk.

“And that was seen as being a useful potential deterrent for migrants crossing the Channel.”

When the agreement was scrapped, then Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Dame Priti Patel, his Home Secretary, ordered security chiefs to draw up plans to intercept and push back migrant boats.

The British plans – marked Official Sensitive – revealed how a Border Force vessel could draw up alongside the migrant vessel before knocking the front portion of it using tactical contact to slowly turn it around whilst the engine was running.

This would be repeated until the migrant dinghy was heading back into French territorial waters.

And Border Force drew up plans for two vessels to box a migrant boat in on both sides and guide it back towards French territorial waters.

This would have been implemented if the asylum seekers refused to comply with requests to turn around.

But Mr Darmanin decided it was “counter to their obligations and our obligations around safety of life at sea”, Mr O’Mahoney said. And it seemingly led to even more anger from Paris.

The relationship seemed to have deteriorated so much that Britain even offered France what it has been subsequently asking for – an EU-wide returns agreement – only to be seemingly rebuffed.

In the wake of the tragedy which claimed the lives of 27 migrants, Mr Johnson wrote to French President Emmanuel Macron stating: “The EU has readmissions agreements with countries including Belarus and the Russian Federation; I hope such an agreement can be rapidly reached with the United Kingdom too.

“Pending such a readmissions agreement at EU level, I propose that we put in place a bilateral readmissions agreement to allow all illegal migrants who cross the Channel to be returned.

“This would have an immediate effect and would significantly reduce -if not stop -the crossings, saving lives by fundamentally breaking the business model of the criminal gangs.”

Mr Macron is still insisting the UK must negotiate a full returns agreement with the EU.

But it has taken four years to negotiate the one-in-one-out deal that Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has admitted isn’t yet deterring migrants from crossing.

And a report prepared by the House of Commons Library told MPs: “The UK might find it difficult to agree to conditions set by the EU, and EU member states have been divided over whether to seek a deal with the UK.

“Southern member states are particularly concerned about how their asylum systems could be affected by the combination of a returns deal with the UK and responsibility-sharing arrangements between EU member states.”