Britain hits back over French threat to scrap Calais ‘jungle’

It’s no surprise that demands from French politicians to scrap the Le Touquet deal and shift the migrant ‘jungle’ from Calais to Dover has gone down badly in Britain. Today’s front pages are full of talk of ‘Le Stitch up’. And the Home Office has waded in to say these plans are a complete ‘non starter’. This all sets the scene for a testy meeting for Amber Rudd as she crosses the Channel to meet her French counterpart, Bernard Cazeneuve, for talks today. Their meeting will be a private one but it isn’t difficult to work out that Calais will be top of their agenda.

What’s difficult about finding a solution, however, is that all of this talk is something of a phoney war of words, at least for now. The current French government has no plans to change things (a deal was signed last summer pledging further co-operation over Calais).