UK and France refocus on limiting Channel migration

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin is on a two-day visit to the UK for talks aimed at imposing ever tighter controls on cross-Channel migration.

During his visit, Darmanin is expected to meet with his British counterpart, Suella Braverman, on Thursday, as well as visiting French border police working in the UK and members of the British security forces MI5.

The meeting between the two ministers, an unnamed ministry official told Agence France Presse (AFP), would be a “working meeting” focusing on “the fight against irregular immigration and our security cooperation.”

More than 8,000 crossed the Channel since January

This year the total number of migrants who have crossed the Channel from France is less than it was over the same period in 2022. But last Sunday, British authorities recorded a new daily arrival record for 2023, registering 616 migrant arrivals. A day later, 545 people arrived.

According to UK government figures, 1,248 people crossed the Channel in small boats from June 10 to June 12. Since the beginning of this year, 8,817 people have made the crossing.

In March, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron signed a new Anglo-French deal, in which the UK agreed to increase funding to the French police in order to try to stop migrants from getting in the small boats in the first place.

On Thursday (June 15), Darmanin is due to meet with French police in the small craft operational command center in Dover, reported AFP.

108 lives saved in Channel by RNLI in 2022

Also on Wednesday, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), a volunteer organization tasked and coordinated by the UK’s official maritime emergency service, HM Coastguard, released figures on how many lives it had saved in 2022.

During 290 rescue operations last year the RNLI saved 108 people from death as they tried to cross the Channel, the organization said in a press release.

This is the first time the rescue charity has published figures about the work of its volunteer crews.

Speaking to the BBC, the organization’s chief executive, Simon Ling, said crews were facing “increasingly traumatic scenes” when they arrived to help with the rescue of those in small boats.

“We’ve had […] women screaming, men screaming. It’s a very chaotic situation. Our crews are trained how to manage that and how to quickly get into rescue mode,” Ling said.

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RNLI crews in southeast England are “engaged in a significant level of work in the Channel as a result of more men, women and children crossing one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes in small, overcrowded and unseaworthy boats,” the organization said.

RNLI pledges to ‘assist anyone who is in trouble’

The RNLI says it will continue to get involved, even in the face of criticism that resources are being misused. In 2021, Nigel Farage, the pro-Brexit campaigner and former leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), accused the RNLI of acting as a “taxi service for illegal immigration.”

The RNLI said its job is to assist anyone who is in trouble on or in the water and it “will go to the aid of those crossing one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes in small, overcrowded and unseaworthy boats, when tasked to do so.”

It went on to state that it is “incredibly proud of our crews who continue to respond selflessly to their pagers, day or night, simply to help others.” The RNLI said it wanted to continue what it has been doing for nearly 200 years, namely rescuing “anyone in trouble at sea…without judgement or preference.”

In response to the question why it would help people who may be trying to enter the UK “illegally”, it said “anyone can drown, but no one should.” The RNLI’s volunteer lifeboat crews “will do everything in their power to save a life and to help those in distress,” it added.

New equipment to meet demands of small boat crossings

Prior to the increase in small boat crossings in the Channel, the RNLI was most used to saving the lives of fisherpeople and yachters or others who had got into trouble at sea, as well as being responsible for the life guards on most of Britain’s beaches. It said its experience over the last few years in the Channel had led it to develop new products and training methods for crews.

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These include a set of inflatable sea stairs which enable RNLI crews to get groups of more than 20 people from a small boat or out of the water onto a lifeboat in a matter of seconds.

RNLI crews have also entered French waters in order to help save lives. The organization says it acts whenever the HM Coastguard task it with a rescue and insists it is permitted and “indeed obligated to enter the waters of other territories for search and rescue purposes.”

Funding comes from donations, not government

Funding for the RNLI comes from the donations of supporters. The UK government does not pay for its rescue work in the Channel or indeed anywhere else in the UK, states the RNLI. Ling told the BBC that the organization may have lost some donors who disagree with its involvement in Channel rescues, but that it had gained others who supported its stance.

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The charity said it does not divert resources or funding to deal with Channel crossings, adding, “our resources are allocated on the basis of need. Our work in the Channel is one part of what the RNLI does to save lives at sea around the UK and Ireland and last year [2022] accounted for 3% of the total number of launches for the RNLI’s 238 lifeboat stations.”