Channel migrants have been secretly picked up in French waters by the UK Border Force and taken to Dover, the Mail can reveal.
The controversial action on the French side of the Channel was orchestrated between senior crew members of HMC Valiant and French patrol ship Athos last Saturday.
On Friday night, a Home Office source said the Government’s own border agency appeared to have helped migrants enter the country illegally, adding: ‘The job of Border Force is to secure the UK’s border, not facilitate illegal entry across it.’
Home Secretary Priti Patel has repeatedly called for stronger action by the French to tackle the crisis, which has seen record numbers of migrants reach Britain.
But her tough stance is being undermined by the antics of her own Border Force.
Channel migrants were secretly picked up by UK Border Force last Saturday, radio transcripts between HMC Valiant (pictured on mission to Greece in February 2020) and French patrol ship Athos reveal
Last night Miss Patel ordered an urgent investigation into the incident, and said it ‘should not have happened’.
During a revealing maritime radio conversation, a recording of which was obtained by the Mail, the officers discuss the ‘legality’ of the operation.
The UK’s 140ft cutter Valiant then heads over to the French side of the Channel and launches a fast inflatable boat to collect the dinghy migrants and take them to Dover.
The extraordinary action came in the middle of a frenzied four-day period during which more than 560 migrants reached Britain.
The previous day – Friday, May 28 – was the busiest of the year so far, with 336 migrants sailing the 21 miles to the UK from the north French coast.
The behaviour of the Valiant, a Government vessel on sea patrol to protect our borders, flies in the face of Whitehall’s repeated promises to stop the relentless flow of boat migrants.
The Home Secretary has made clear she wants the French to do far more to combat migrant vessels at sea. Currently, France will intervene only if migrants ask for help.
In May last year, Miss Patel asked her Paris counterpart to agree to more interception in French waters – and even to accept vessels that were turned around in UK waters.
In the controversial action, the UK’s 140ft cutter Valiant headed to the French side of the Channel and launched an inflatable boat to collect dinghy migrants and take them to Dover
However, no deal was reached and instead the UK handed France £28 million for extra beach patrols.
This year the number of arrivals expected to reach the south coast from France will far outstrip last year’s 8,400 if current rates continue.
Since the start of this year more than 4,300 have reached the UK, including 1,058 in the past seven days.
The radio conversation – which took place on open frequencies between British and French officers – started at 12.23pm British time last Saturday.
A British officer with a northern accent is heard proposing the illicit handover.
He then double-checks with his French counterparts that he has legal authorisation to carry out the manoeuvre.
‘The difficulty we have is the vessel is in your waters, and we cannot come into your waters to take the vessel,’ the British officer says.
He later asks: ‘Would you have a problem if we put our boarding boat into the water near the vessel, however, we will just escort it towards UK waters?’
At one point, the Athos officer says: ‘We give you legality to do this, no problem.’
Ship tracking charts show that just 23 minutes later, the Valiant moved over the international sea border into French territorial waters.
It launches a fast inflatable craft to bring the migrants back to the Valiant, and then to Dover.
At no stage did the French crew, who had been tracking the migrant boat for hours, suggest the vessel was in difficulties – and only referred to its progress being ‘slow’.
Therefore, the Border Force’s incursion into French waters was not an emergency life-saving mission.
The incident took place on a day when 144 migrants reached UK shores, Home Office figures show. It is not known how many migrants were picked up by the Valiant.
Last night, the south coast sailor who gave the radio message to the Mail said: ‘We know the French are escorting migrant boats towards the UK instead of turning them back to France. But this is a first time I have heard of British Border Force collecting migrants on the French side of the Channel.
‘I have suspected it going on for some time, but the radio message that I happened to overhear on an public channel proves it.
‘The French patrol boat captain makes clear the migrants are not in peril at sea. They were travelling slowly towards the UK where they would have been collected by UK Border Force vessels in English waters.’
The sailor added: ‘I worry that Valiant may have gone into French waters in a hurry to save time on a day when more than 100 migrants were heading from France to Dover. I am sure Border Force were overwhelmed.’
Last September the Home Office’s clandestine channel threat commander Dan O’Mahoney, a former Royal Marine, said turning boats around to France was a key goal in the fight to stop illegal crossings.
‘We need to continue to work with the French so that we get to the point where they’re preventing the majority of crossings,’ he said. ‘At the moment, it’s somewhere between 40 or 50 per cent.
‘We need to get to the point where they’re stopping a sizable proportion of those crossings, so that the migrants realise that it is not a viable route.’
The Home Office has spent millions on specialist equipment – including a floating barrier to stop small boats – but is unable to deploy the new tactics without France’s agreement.
In January 2019, then immigration minister Caroline Nokes told Parliament: ‘In the majority of cases, if a migrant is picked up in UK waters they are taken to the UK. If they are picked up in French waters they are taken to France.’
She said an action plan with France to curb boat migration ruled that migrants found in the Channel would be returned to the ‘nearest safe port’ in accordance with international maritime law.
The minister added: ‘Too often, migrants in the Channel dictate to those who come to their rescue which country they should be taken. That is not right. I have asked immigration officials to do all they can to prevent asylum shopping at sea.’
PLATELL’S PEOPLE: Boris Johnson has betrayed us all on borders
By Amanda Platell for the Daily Mail
Can it be only five years since Boris Johnson and Priti Patel toured the nation before the EU referendum, promising Brexit would mean we’d take back control of our borders and stop uncontrolled, unsustainable illegal immigration into this country?
‘The only way to take back control of immigration is to Vote Leave on 23 June,’ declared Boris — and millions of Brits took him at his word.
Fast forward to today and there’s no control. More than 900 immigrants have crossed the Channel illegally in the past fortnight alone.
At least 4,000 migrants have crossed by small boat so far this year, according to Home Office statistics — double the number in the same five-month period last year.
It has been five years since Boris Johnson and Priti Patel (pictured) toured the nation before the EU referendum, promising Brexit would mean we’d take back control of our borders
With the warmer weather and UK borders which are unfit for purpose, the number is only going to rise. And what have Boris and Priti done to stop the flow? Absolutely nothing.
As the Mail reveals today, migrants have even been secretly plucked from French waters by UK Border Force vessels and ferried to Britain.
It is the most abject betrayal of their Brexit promises.
To add insult to incompetence, a High Court judge ruled this week that a former Army barracks was ‘unfit’ for asylum-seekers fleeing persecution in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Palestine and Kuwait.
Six migrants housed at Napier Barracks in Kent claimed they were unsafe, and the judge agreed that the accommodation had damaged their mental health. Not only did the migrants win their case but they were entitled to compensation, too.
Call me a cynic, but surely someone fleeing persecution and in fear of their lives would find housing in an Army Barracks in Kent a refuge.
Britain has a proud record of welcoming refugees, but that generosity is being abused. One migrant boasted on TikTok of how easily he had travelled in a dinghy powered by a Yamaha motor from Calais to Dover.
The broken system only encourages more migrants to chance their arm — and their lives — to get to Britain.
Boris and Priti’s promises lie in tatters. They should hang their heads in shame.