UK: More Deaths in Channel ― France Calls for EU-UK Migration Treaty ― Prime Minister Praises Italy’s Efforts in Reducing Irregular Migration ― NGOs Denounce Government Proposal to Involve them in Resettling Deportees ― Inquiry Chair Criticises Government for Failing to Agree on Recommendations Following Abuse at Removal Centre ― Home Office Scraps Plans to Use Former Military Base as Asylum Accommodation | European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE)

Twenty people have died in two separate incidents in the Channel in September.
France’s interior minister has called for a for a migration treaty between the UK and the EU, while the UK has announced additional funding for border security.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has praised Italy’s efforts to reduce irregular migration and shown ‘great interest’ in the Italy-Albania Protocol following discussions with his Italian counterpart.
More than 30 NGOs have written a joint letter to Secretary of State for the Home Department Yvette Cooper to denounce a recent proposal to pay them to help settle people who have been deported from the UK.
The chair of the public inquiry into abuse at an immigration removal centre in 2017 has criticised the government for failing to agree all but one of its 33 recommendations.
The Home Office has announced that it has scrapped plans to house people seeking asylum at a former military base in Lincolnshire.

Another eight people have died whilst trying to cross the Channel from France to the UK in a small boat. The latest deaths occurred in the early hours of 15 September off the coast of Ambleteuse in northern France. According to French authorities, the boat was carrying 59 people from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Egypt and Sudan when it ran aground and was “clearly torn on the rocks”. 51 people, including a 10-moth-old baby were rescued. Commenting on the latest tragedy, the head of ECRE member organisation the Refugee Council, Enver Solomon, urged the UK government not to rely on enforcement to reduce the number of small boat crossings. “Enforcement alone is not the solution. People are being forced into the arms of smugglers because they are desperate, fleeing violence and persecution in countries like Afghanistan, Syria and Sudan in search of safety,” he said, adding: “Smugglers will respond to tougher policing by making these refugees take bigger risks, with more perilous crossing points and more crowded boats”.

The eight deaths near Ambleteuse came less than two weeks after 12 people died after the bottom of their boat “ripped open” off the Cap Gris-Nez a few kilometres along the coast. According to French authorities, the dead included six children and a pregnant woman. It is understood that most of the victims were from Eritrea. Commenting on the tragedy, which occurred on 3 September, Minister for Border Security and Asylum Angela Eagle claimed that there were already some safe routes available to people who wanted to claim asylum in the UK. “Unfortunately, there are also (…) more people who want to come, than there are safe or legal routes that we could ever set up,” she said, adding: “So the way of stopping this is actually to deal with the people-smuggling gangs and the exploitation of vulnerable people that they are facilitating”. Amnesty International UK said: “No amount of ‘smash the gangs’ policing and government rhetoric is going to stop these disasters from unfolding time and again if the needs of people exploited by these gangs remain unaddressed”. The head of the refugee rights NGO Safe Passage International, Dr Wanda Wyporska said: “We must not accept this government’s refusal to prioritise opening new safe routes”, while the head of refugee NGO Care4Calais, Steve Smith, said: “Every political leader, on both sides of our Channel, needs to be asked: ‘How many lives will be lost before they end these avoidable tragedies?’. Amélie Moyart from the humanitarian NGO Utopia 56 highlighted the risk of an enforcement-focused approach. “There’s still a lot of demand but there’s less boats, which means there are more people in each one, and it’s more difficult to put a boat in the sea,” she said, adding: “All the enforcement the French and English are putting in place, it’s not a solution, it’s just making people take more and more risk and making the crossing more dangerous”.

The day after the Cap Gris-Nez incident, French Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin called for a migration treaty between the UK and the EU. The EU should seek to “re-establish a traditional migration partnership with our British friends and neighbours,” he said, adding that the € 541 million that the UK had paid France for increased border security represented only “a third of what we are spending”. He also suggested that the UK was an attractive destination for people on the move because “often, you can work without having papers” and “as there is no common immigration policy with the EU (…), people try a lot to go to Great Britain because they know that they are probably not deportable from British territory”. On 17 September, UK Secretary of State for the Home Department Yvette Cooper announced that the government would allocate £ 75 million to improve the capabilities of the UK Border Security Command.

On 16 September, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer had a meeting with his Italian counterpart, Giorgia Meloni, to discuss various migration-related issues. At a press conference after their meeting, Starmer praised the Italian prime minister, saying: “You have made significant progress by working hand-in-hand with countries along the migration routes to address the root causes of migration and dismantle criminal networks”. Meloni told journalists that Starmer had shown “great interest” in the Italy-Albania Protocol that was signed in November 2023. Starmer also praised Italy’s role in the migration deals that the EU has signed with Libya and Tunisia. “Preventing people leaving their country in the first place is far better than trying to deal with those that have arrived in any of our countries (…),” he said, adding that the deals “appear to have had quite a profound effect”. Several members of the UK parliament, including members of Starmer’s own Labour party questioned the wisdom of the leader of a centre-left UK government taking migration advice from a far-right Italian politician. Kim Johnson MP described it as “disturbing” while Nadia Whittome MP suggested that the government should be “building an asylum and immigration system with compassion at its heart”. Responding to the criticism, Starmer claimed that learning lessons from “allies” demonstrated the new UK government’s “return to British pragmatism”. “We are pragmatists, first and foremost. When we see a challenge, we discuss with our friends and allies the different approaches that are being taken, look at what works,” he said.

More than 30 NGOs have written to Secretary of State for the Home Department Yvette Cooper to denounce the Home Office’s proposal to pay them to help settle people who have been deported from the UK. The joint letter was sent in protest over the launch of a call for tenders for a £ 15 million government contract to pay “non-statutory sector organisations that are charities and non-profit making organisations” to help people from, Albania, Bangladesh, Ghana, Ethiopia, India, Iraq, Jamaica, Nigeria, Pakistan, Vietnam and Zimbabwe with “temporary accommodation, food and cash assistance” when they arrive back in their countries of origin. “We stand united against this attempt to make us complicit in the department’s harmful and divisive anti-migrant agenda,” the NGOs wrote. According to one of the signatory organisations, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), the call for tenders represented an attempt by the government to “bribe” NGOs. “In this context, offering charities millions to become part of the system putting our clients at risk is cynical and deeply unethical,” said Mary Atkinson from JCWI.

Elsewhere, the chair of the public inquiry into abuse that took place in 2017 at the Brook House Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) near London Gatwick Airport has reported that the government had only agreed to one of its 33 recommendations. On 18 September, Kate Eves said the previous government’s response had been “inadequate and disappointing” and that the current government was “failing to listen” to the inquiry’s proposals for urgent changes relating to staff training, the use of force in IRCs and time limits on detention. One year after the report was published, the only recommendation that has been agreed to by the government relates to ensuring that all IRC staff are aware of a “ban on handcuffing people behind their backs when sitting down”.

And finally, the Home Office has announced that it has scrapped plans to house people seeking asylum at a former military base in Lincolnshire. According to a written statement to the House of Commons by Minister for Border Security and Asylum Angela Eagle on 5 September, the plans to convert RAF Scampton had been abandoned because it “clearly fails to deliver value for money for the taxpayer”. An estimated £ 60 million had already been spent on the scheme which was due to have cost a total of £ 122 million between its scheduled opening in autumn 2024 and the end of its use in 2027. The decision comes less than two months after the Home Office also announced that the contract for the Bibby Stockholm barge would not be renewed when it expires in January 2025. The barge, which is moored off Portland on the south coast of England, has been used as asylum accommodation for men since August 2023.

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