Macron warned he will have blood on his hands if he refuses to budge on migrant crisis
Channel crossings: Border force patrol following deaths
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Britain was due to attend a meeting, organised by France, with some of Europe’s leaders this weekend to draw up proposals for resolving the ever-growing issue of migrants crossing the Channel from France to Britain. But Mr Macron disinvited Home Secretary Priti Patel in retaliation to Boris Johnson publishing a letter on the topic online.
In the letter, posted on Twitter, the Prime Minister laid out the UK’s proposals for coming to an agreement with France.
He even heaped praise on France for “working on this challenging issue for so long”.
But the letter did not have the desired effect, with Mr Macron accusing the Government of not being “serious”.
Despite the French President’s criticism, it is now he who faces calls to change his tune.
A senior Government source, quoted in the Times, said France must allow Britain to rejoin the negotiating table to prevent more people from dying while attempting the dangerous journey across the Channel.
They said: “Our plan is the plan. It will be a test of their determination to prevent further loss of life.
“We need to fix this. We can’t have kids dying in the Channel every week.”
This comes after 27 migrants drowned while attempting to cross the Channel in a dinghy on Wednesday.
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The group included seven women – one of whom was pregnant – and three children.
Another Government source, quoted in the newspaper, said: “The fact is more people are going to die because of offence taken at a tweet and that is a sad situation to be in.”
Even Lord Ricketts, a former ambassador to France who said the publication of the letter on Thursday evening was “terribly bad handling”, conceded that Paris was “quite wrong” to cancel Ms Patel’s appearance at the meeting between leaders.
Patrick O’Flynn also issued his damning verdict on Mr Macron’s behaviour in these pages on Saturday morning: “Instead of acknowledging his regime’s failure to prevent mass death within its territorial waters and working with its major maritime neighbour to put things right, Mr Macron has decided to indulge in another round of theatrical confrontation with ‘Les Rosbifs’, presumably with at least one eye on a looming re-election battle.”
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Other French officials have delved further into political squabbles, accusing Britain of attempting to have its cake and eat it by allegedly proposing to adopt EU treaties after having left the bloc.
They refer in particular to the Dublin agreement on the relocation of asylum seekers across EU nations.
But Bow Group Chairman Ben Harris-Quinney told Express.co.uk that Britain has every right to disassociate itself with this, and other EU treaties and to create its own terms and conditions.
He said: “They should be torn up from a UK point of view, and domestic laws made that reflect the wishes of the public on immigration.”
Almost 26,000 migrants have successfully made the crossing this year, according to data from the Home Office.
That’s more than three times the total number who are reported to have crossed in 2020.
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