𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

I spent two days in Northern France this week observing the absolute chaos occurring in the Channel.

What I saw was extraordinary.

Large groups of migrants running down the beach, wading into the water to board the boats.

Young men pushing women off the boats and back into the water.

And the French police standing idly by doing absolutely nothing whatsoever to stop this illegal migration into Britain.

The British taxpayer currently pays hundreds of millions of pounds every year to France in return for their help to stop the boats.

Yet I didn’t see any sign of that help as migrants surged into the water and set off for the English coast.

I even notified the police when a people smuggler started the engine, organised the migrants and disembarked. They refused to arrest him.

I confronted two officers on Hardelot beach, south of Boulogne, to find out why they weren’t doing anything.

“Our order is to let them go. We just have to say to them: ‘Don’t do that. It’s dangerous.’”

It could hardly believe what I was hearing. They had been told not to intervene, other than to advise the migrants not to cross the Channel – as if that would achieve anything.

The same day, up to 700 migrants crossed the Channel in small boats – potentially one of the largest arrivals in a single day this year.

The French police might as well not have been there at all.

This is what we are paying for: a complete charade.

It would be farcical if it wasn’t so tragic. Four people died attempting to cross the Channel this week. These are some of the real human consequences of the people smuggling racket that is running wild in our waters.

When you remember that, it makes it all the more remarkable that the French authorities would turn a blind eye.

But they get paid whatever they do. Much of the funding we give France is unconditional. We keep handing over the cash, and they keep paying lip service to the agreement we have with them.

They don’t want these migrants in their own country. They are more than happy to see them leave for the UK.

So we need to give the French an incentive. We need to tell them that if they don’t stop the boats, they won’t get a penny more from us.

Money talks, and we have to be careful about how we spend ours.

It’s insulting to taxpayers to keep giving their hard-earned cash to the French if the French don’t give us anything in return.

Of course, that won’t solve the problem on its own. But it will send a clear message that if France wants that funding, it has to play ball.

And we need to change the incentives for migrants too.

As long as people can get to the UK without genuine fear of deportation, they will keep coming.

The Conservatives are clear about what we have to do.

We need to leave the ECHR. For too long, this international Convention, and the judgements of its court has stopped us from doing what is in our country’s best interests, and deporting those who come here illegally.

As part of our BORDERS plan, we will deport all new illegal arrivals within a week, and remove all foreign criminals. We will impose a total ban on asylum claims for new illegal entrants.

And we will set up returns agreements with other countries, backed by visa sanctions.

In addition we will set up a Removals Force to remove 150,000 illegal immigrants a year, end the court circus migrants use to stay in our country, and support our allies abroad to prevent illegal entry to Europe.

This is all the more important in the wake of the alarming scenes at Ceuta this week, where tens of thousands of migrants stormed the border from Morocco into Spanish territory.

There is a serious risk that some of those migrants may end up in our country, not least with Gibraltar so close by. So inaction is not an option.

Labour scrapped our Rwanda deal because they don’t have the backbone to take on the challenge of stopping the boats.

We are the only Party with a coherent plan to get a grip on the crisis in the Channel and secure our country’s borders.