A French mayor has sparked outrage after claiming that Britain’s liberal work and benefits system is attracting migrants to make life-endangering trips across the English Channel. This comes shortly after five migrants lost their lives trying to cross in a small boat from France on Sunday.
The Mayor of Wimereux, Jean-Luc Dubaele, said that Britain’s policies towards migrants are so attractive that they are causing people to risk their lives to make it to the British “El Dorado”.
Following the tragic deaths of the five migrants just to the south of Calais, the local leader said: “I am angry, like all the mayors of neighboring towns. We are suffering from human trafficking. At the political level, we will have to change the situation, and bang our fist on the table with the English.
“Migrants today want to go to England because they are well received there, they can work there without problem.
“‘We must get back to the table with England and rework the Le Touquet agreements…let England be less of an El Dorado for migrants who arrive.”
The tirade comes despite Home Secretary James Cleverly insisting that the backlog of “legacy” asylum claims have now been dealt with, with the exception of a small number of outstanding claims.
The Home Secretary told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the Prime Minister’s commitment had been to “make sure we process” the 92,000 legacy claims.
Mr Cleverly said: “Every single one of those applications has been processed. In the vast majority, a final adjudication has been made. In a small number – about 4,500 where there are discrepancies, where there are further checks, additional work needs to be done.”
Pressed on cases not being fully resolved, he added: “The commitment was to make sure they were all processed, to process that backlog, and that’s exactly what we’ve done, we’ve completed that processing.”
Following the shocking loss of life in the Channel, Foreign Secretary David Cameron told the BBC: “It breaks my heart to hear about it…we’ve got to stop this illegal trade in human beings.”
Despite the number of Channel crossings falling last year to 29,090, the figure the year before was the highest on record at 45,755.
Since 2020, more than 100,000 people have successfully crossed into Britain according to Home Office figures.
