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France 24
4 days ago
- Politics
- France 24
Thai-Cambodia border clashes continue despite Trump's ceasefire call
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Daily Mail
13-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Opinion: Channel migrants are troops recruited by Macron
Look at those people bobbing in the Channel, crossing the sea every day in an irresistible tide. See their pitiful burstable coracles, so rammed with humanity that their limbs are left trailing in the water. Count the numbers that have been coming in, more than 40 per cent up on last year – tens of thousands of illegal aliens scrambling ashore and burying themselves in the crevices of our society. Then ask yourself the key question. Who benefits? Who is really behind this moral, political and economic disaster? Which is the evil genius orchestrating this daily humiliation of the British state? It is time to unmask the Mr Big – or Monsieur Petit – behind the whole thing, and I will give you a clue. He has Cuban heels, a boyish charm, a lisping voice, and a wife who smacks him around in public. Yes, folks, there is one ultimate beneficiary of this whole nightmare, and that is Emmanuel Macron of France. As he made clear during his press conference with Keir Starmer, the French president is blatantly using this crisis to make a political point – namely that Brexit Britain has been unable to control its borders . It follows that every single one of those young men – and they are almost all young men – has effectively been recruited by Macron to embarrass the UK. These are his shock troops in his continuing jihad against Brexit. He will keep sending them over the Channel in boat after boat until we accept his ridiculous and insulting assertion: that the British people are fools, that they swallowed a lie, and the whole problem of illegal migration is now so bad that we might as well concede that Brexit was a mistake and a delusion, and get back into the EU. That is Macron's game; that is his strategy. And that is why he will never do enough to stop the boats. No one was fooled by the 'returns agreement' this week between the UK and France, the so-called 'one in one out' deal by which illegal arrivals could be swapped for those with a legal claim to come to Britain. By definition, this would do nothing to reduce the overall immigration total, since we would be taking one more person for every illegal arrival notionally sent back to France. More seriously, the proposal will do nothing to deter the gangs. Even if Macron can get the EU commission to approve the scheme, the French say that they expect to take about 50 people per week. That is pathetic. As Chris Philp, the Tory Shadow Home Secretary points out – that would be only 6 per cent of the weekly arrivals. Even if this agreement were to get going, that means your average cross-Channel migrant would have a 94 per cent chance of staying in the UK; and everyone knows that, once you have your jaws clamped around the teat of the UK system, it is almost impossible to prise you away. This scheme is not serious. Macron agreed to do it as a sop to Starmer, and in exchange for the kudos of a state visit, and the chance for him and Brigitte to hobnob with the King and Queen. He doesn't want to make it work – because he has had plenty of opportunity to do so before, and the French efforts have been lackadaisical in the extreme. The gendarmes have been given almost £800m of our money to patrol the beaches of Calais, and yet the problem is getting worse. They haven't fixed it because, fundamentally, Macron wants to convince the British public of a blatant lie – the one he told at the press conference – that this problem has been somehow caused by Brexit. What rubbish. Quelle poubelle! Remember that before Brexit we were obliged by basic EU law to treat every one of the 520 million EU nationals as if they were British citizens, for the purposes of migration to this country . It was insane. Brexit took back full legal control. We can, if we choose, have absolutely zero legal migration to this country – zero. As for tackling illegal migration, EU membership was worse than useless. It is true that there was the 'Dublin convention' by which EU countries could in theory send illegal arrivals back to their country of origin within the EU. In practice, Dublin was a dud. It had broken down long before Brexit; the lawyers were making mincemeat of it, and hardly any illegal arrivals were being returned anywhere. The whole thing was a farce, and we were prevented by EU rules from passing tougher laws ourselves. So, in blaming Brexit for the migrant crossings, Macron is uttering a great, stinking, festering falsehood, and if he had said such a thing in Brigitte Macron's classroom, I hope that she would have given him one of her trademark smacks around his smirking chops. The reality is that Brexit actually gives us the power to control not just legal migration – but to fix illegal migration as well ; and the tragedy of this government is that Starmer refuses to use those powers. The Labour government is being sucked back into the orbit of the EU at the very moment when we need to be doing things our own way . Ask yourself: why does Macron hate Brexit so? Why does he see fit to come to this country, wag his finger, and tell the British public that they have been stupid and wrong? The answer is that he fears Brexit, and he fears the massive potential of an independent Britain. He saw what happened, for instance, when we diverged from the EU regulatory framework and achieved the fastest Covid vaccine roll-out in Europe, followed by the fastest exit from lockdown. He didn't like it at all. He doesn't want Brexit Britain to succeed; he wants it to fail, to be brought to heel, and Labour is all too eager to oblige. Starmer is accepting EU law for the UK – with no say in making it, turning this country into a colony of Brussels . Worse, he seems on the point of adopting the French wealth tax, which has driven tens of thousands of entrepreneurs from France. They are taking this country back into a morass of unnecessary employment law, and suggesting such bizarre Soviet anachronisms as state-owned restaurants. All the while the Reeves-Starmer high-tax economic doom loop continues to stifle activity, so that, as reported yesterday, the economy shrunk for the second quarter. When Starmer and Macron agreed their feeble returns deal, the French apparently set one condition. The UK would have to abandon the Rwanda plan. On the face of things, this was bizarre. Why should the French care? But on reflection the reason is obvious. Rwanda is made possible by Brexit, since we can ignore EU law on asylum and other matters to make it happen; and, unlike any other plan, Rwanda would actually work. It doesn't mean sending back six per cent of illegals; it means sending 100 per cent of them from Kent to Kigali. The idiotic Starmer has axed this country's only practical plan to deal with the boats – at French behest! – while the French cynically refuse to do enough to help. Like the old Danish king of England, Starmer sits and watches as the waves of people wash irresistibly to our shores, and in his self-imposed impotence he is making himself look like a complete and utter Canute.
The Sun
10-07-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
I watched in horror with Farage as 78 migrants crossed to UK – what we saw undermined any claims of ‘stopping the boats'
AS Keir Starmer unveiled his new small boats deal, I watched in horror in the middle of the Channel with Nigel Farage as the French handed 78 migrants to the UK Border Force. The French even demanded their life jackets back for the next batch of illegal migrants heading to Britain. 5 5 5 A state-facilitated crime was unfolding before my very eyes. Nothing prepared me for this spectacle in the heart of the English Channel. We set off from Dover on a small fishing boat with Nigel around 5am. Overhead we could hear the buzz of a drone used to monitor the dangerous small boat crossings. Soon we spotted a French Navy ship on the horizon chaperoning a migrant dinghy towards international waters. Using binoculars we could see it was packed with men, feet hanging over the side dragging in the water. Reports came in that there was one woman and three children aboard. Behind us a UK Border Force boat emblazoned with the Union Jack raced to the edge of British waters to wait for the French to bring the boat to them. 5 The precarious migrant dinghy was soon bobbing within around 250 metres in front of us. French on one side, Brits on the other. What we saw next undermined any claims of 'stopping the boats'. Suddenly a French rib boat sped over to the dinghy. We worried that the migrants were in trouble. Shockingly it transpired that the French were asking for 40 life jackets back which had been lent to the migrants earlier in the journey. They wanted the equipment back before the migrants crossed into UK waters. 5 Our crew, listening in on their radio, said they had never seen anything like it before. Usually the French ask for their life jackets back after the migrants have been brought to Dover. Clearly they were expecting hundreds more to attempt to get to Britain in the warm weather and low winds. After this, two British rib boats were sent out to help the migrants towards the much larger UK Border Force boat. As they tried to get off the boat we could hear the migrants shouting up to the crew. Even after the scramble was over there was still more work to do. A British boat had been sent to collect the empty rubber dinghy. The handover of migrants in the English Channel was both seamless and shameful. In around 15 minutes it was all over. At one point our crew was warned by the French Navy to back off. No-one wants the public to see this. It is one of the reasons why the boats are picked up in the middle of the Channel instead of allowing them to land on beaches. What I saw on Thursday was less stop the boats and more carry on migrating.
Yahoo
06-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'Emergency' at Afghan border as migrant returns from Iran surge ahead of deadline
Tens of thousands of Afghans streamed over the border from Iran in the days before a return deadline set for Sunday, the United Nations said, sparking an "emergency" situation at border points. In late May, Iran said undocumented Afghans must leave the country by July 6, potentially impacting four million people, out of the six million Afghans Tehran says live in the country. Numbers of people crossing the border have surged since mid-June, with a peak of more than 43,000 people crossing at Islam Qala in western Herat province on July 1, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday. The UN migration agency IOM said more than 250,000 Afghans returned from Iran in June. UNICEF country representative Tajudeen Oyewale said this was an "emergency" situation in a country already facing a "chronic returnee crisis", with 1.4 million Afghans returning from traditional hosts Iran and Pakistan this year. "What is concerning is that 25 percent of all these returnees are children... because the demographics have shifted" from individual men to whole families, crossing the border with scant belongings and money, he told AFP on Thursday. He noted Islam Qala could accommodate the vast numbers but was inadequately equipped in terms of services, saying, "When you start hitting more than 20,000 people (a day) that is completely beyond the planning scenario that we have". The agency has engaged emergency processes to ramp up water and sanitation systems built for 7-10,000 people a day, along with vaccinations, nutrition and child-friendly spaces. Many people crossing reported pressure from authorities or even arrest and deportation. "Some people are so afraid that they don't leave the house themselves... They send their young children out just for a piece of bread, and even those children get arrested sometimes," said 38-year-old Aref Atayi of the pressures Afghans face in Iran. "Even if I have to beg in my own country, it's still better than staying in a place where we're treated like this," he told AFP on Saturday, as he waited at the IOM-run reception centre for some support to help his family resettle. Massive foreign aid cuts have impacted the response to the crisis, with the UN, international non-governmental groups and Taliban officials calling for more funding to support the returnees. The UN has warned the influx could destabilise the country already grappling with entrenched poverty, unemployment and climate change-related shocks and urged countries not to forcibly return Afghans. str-sw/mtp
South China Morning Post
06-07-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Afghanistan border ‘emergency' as thousands deported from Iran: UN
Tens of thousands of Afghans streamed over the border from Iran in the days before a return deadline set for Sunday, the United Nations said, sparking an 'emergency' situation at border points. In late May, Iran said undocumented Afghans must leave the country by July 6, potentially impacting four million people, out of the six million Afghans Tehran says live in the country. Numbers of people crossing the border have surged since mid-June, with a peak of more than 43,000 people crossing at Islam Qala in western Herat province on July 1, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday. The UN migration agency IOM said more than 250,000 Afghans returned from Iran in June. Afghan refugees arrive from Iran at Islam Qala border between Afghanistan and Iran, on Saturday. Photo: AFP Unicef country representative Tajudeen Oyewale said this was an 'emergency' situation in a country already facing a 'chronic returnee crisis', with 1.4 million Afghans returning from traditional hosts Iran and Pakistan this year. 'What is concerning is that 25 per cent of all these returnees are children … because the demographics have shifted' from individual men to whole families, crossing the border with scant belongings and money, he said on Thursday.
