Channel Migrant Crisis Has Priti Patel 'Battling to Stay in Job' Despite BoJo's 'Soft Spot For Her'
08:44 GMT 22.11.2021 (Updated: 15:16 GMT 28.05.2023)
© AFP 2023 / Geoff Robins
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As a further 1,185 people crossed the English Channel by dinghy to reach Britain’s shores on 18 November in a new record for a single day; Downing Street’s concern prompted Prime Minister Boris Johnson to announce a review of the government’s small boats policy on Friday.
UK Home Secretary Priti Patel is reportedly “battling to stay in her job” amid the fallout from the continuing migrant crisis that has seen record numbers of illegals cross the English Channel, according to The Sun.
“Boris has a soft spot for her and she is broadly unsackable since the reshuffle, but she’s running out of road,” a source was cited as saying, weighing in on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s regard for Patel.
As the Labour Party accused Priti Patel of “comprehensively failing” to curb the record number of small boat arrivals, Shadow Home Secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, was cited as warning that the minister’s “incompetence on this issue is dangerous”.
Accordingly, a Cabinet minister was cited by the outlet as saying that unless Patel managed to get a grip on the migrant issue, she might be axed notwithstanding Boris Johnson's apparent reluctance to part with her.
“The postbags are overflowing. She is battling for her job now,” was the opinion of another cited source.
Amid calls for Britain to send troops across the Channel to help the French patrol the coast, one senior minister was cited as suggesting: “If you’re not going to change the personnel, you’ve got to change the policy.”
A group of people, thought to be migrants wait on a Border Force rib to come ashore at Dover marina in Kent, England after a small boat incident in the English Channel, Tuesday Sept. 22, 2020.
© AP Photo / Gareth Fuller
As Tory MP for South Thanet, Craig Mackinlay, blamed the migrant crisis for the Conservative Party’s plummeting poll ratings, he added: “It looks like state failure. How about we make a generous offer to the French and say, ‘How many of our police, border force and troops do you need to patrol this 100 miles of beach to stop this?’”
In response, a Home Office source was cited as conceding: “It is something we will always keep on the table”.
Echoing these sentiments, Health Secretary Sajid Javid was cited as saying on Sky News: “It’s the people smugglers that are to blame and it’s right the Home Secretary is looking at every option to break this business model.” One MP was cited as deploring the fact that Priti Patel had fallen into PM Boris Johnson’s habit of “overpromising and underdelivering” on government policy.
“Voters will see through this government. HS2, social care and migrant boats – it is difficult not to see a pattern and it has to stop,” the MP was cited as warning.
Options Mulled Amid Migrant Crisis
Over 24,700 migrants have arrived in the UK so far this year after venturing across the English Channel in small boats. This is almost three times the 8,404 arrivals registered in 2020.
On Friday, the UK Home Office confirmed that in a new record for arrivals in a single day, 18 November witnessed 1,185 asylum-seekers intercepted and brought to shore by the Border Force, with French authorities intercepting and preventing 99 people from reaching the UK. The number was slammed as "unacceptable" by the department.
"The British public have had enough of seeing people die in the Channel while ruthless criminal gangs profit from their misery and our New Plan for Immigration will fix the broken system which encourages migrants to make this lethal journey," a spokesperson was cited as saying.
Some estimates suggest that 10 people have died in the last few weeks while trying to navigate the busy shipping channel. As no viable policy has succeeded in reducing the numbers of arrivals despite the British government repeatedly promising to make the route unviable, Boris Johnson has ordered a cross-government review into the crisis, to be led by Cabinet minister Steve Barclay, with sources denying the move is targeting Priti Patel.
A group of 80 migrants get on one of the inflatable boats to cross the Channel towards England at night, near Wimereux, northern France, on October 16, 2021
© AFP 2023 / MARC SANYE
Conservative MPs are reportedly urging ministers to send asylum-seekers to offshore centres as far away as the Falkland Islands. “I would be in favour of [using] the Falkland Islands. The only way we will put these people off is by giving them the message that if you come here you are going to be sent 8,000 miles away,” said Lee Anderson, MP for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire. Others insist that Priti Patel should be willing to automatically return migrants to France.
According to Craig Mackinlay, he and his backbench colleagues are facing demands from constituents that the government pull out all the stops to prevent boats carrying migrants from entering the UK.
“We had a Brexit election where one of the main issues was getting control of our borders. This is of massive concern to my constituency and many of our voters across the UK,” he was cited as saying.
Mackinlay was quoted as touting the option of sending people straight back to France “although this could have diplomatic, high octane consequences.”
Last night I spoke to my French counterpart @GDarmanin to discuss the problem of small boats crossing the Channel.
— Priti Patel (@pritipatel) November 16, 2021
We discussed a range of additional steps to tackle the problem and reiterated the importance of working together to make this deadly route unviable.
🇬🇧🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/a8ZgHbvSiT
The UK-mulled tactic of turning boats back at sea in a “push-back” measure is yet to be used. Earlier in the year it was condemned by the French authorities. Paris had suggested it will not cooperate with the plans.
19 November 2021, 16:09 GMT
In a September letter to Patel, French interior minister, Gerald Darmanin, said “safeguarding human lives at sea takes priority over considerations of nationality, status and migratory policy”. “The use of maritime refoulements to French territorial waters would risk having a negative impact on our cooperation,” added Darmanin.
UK ministers have pinned their hopes on the New Plan for Immigration, currently passing through the Commons, that would make it harder for anyone arriving by boat to successfully claim asylum. Patel has insisted that appeals to asylum decisions are “a complete merry-go-round and it has been exploited” by immigration lawyers.
In this file photo dated Saturday Aug. 8, 2020, a Border Force vessel at the port city of Dover, England. Fifteen migrants have been saved Tuesday Oct. 27, 2020, as search and rescue operations by the Border Force continue, but at least four migrants, including a 5-year-old and 8-year-old child, have died Tuesday when their boat capsized while they and other migrants tried to cross the English Channel to Britain, French authorities said. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, FILE)
© AP Photo / Kirsty Wigglesworth
However, the Home Secretary’s immigration bill has been criticized as unable to fix the UK’s “broken” asylum system. A recent report by the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration found there was a “toxic environment” within the Home Office generated by pressure to meet targets for deciding on asylum claims.
“Ministers have described the asylum system as ‘broken’ and have pointed to the ‘New Plan for Immigration’ as the remedy. But whatever changes this brings, there will still be a need to ensure that the Home Office is properly resourced, equipped and organised to make timely and good quality asylum decisions,” wrote chief inspector David Neal.
He added that the government had “failed to keep on top of the volume of claims”, insisting that some asylum officials had been “openly disbelieving claimants in interviews and not responding appropriately to sensitive disclosures of personal information”.
