Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

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). Yet it’s the frontrunners in next year’s presidential race who have been talking about scrapping the deal. This means that whilst we’ll hear more of the platitudes that co-operation will continue, it’s the French politicians of tomorrow who will actually set the agenda – putting the UK Government in something of a limbo. Of course, the realities of the situation may end up forcing some of those French presidential wannabes, including Nicolas Sarkozy, into making a U-turn as they realise opening up the border might actually make things worse. As Charlie Elphicke, MP for Dover pointed out on the radio this morning, doing so would turn Calais into even more of a ‘magnet’ for migrants; and that’s in no one’s interests.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in