Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp has condemned "shocking" new footage of illegal migrants being handed life jackets by French authorities as they make their perilous journey to Britain.In an exclusive investigation by GB News, a video shot from on board a migrant boat shows a rigid inflatable rescue craft approaching the small boat, and French border patrol officers throwing a batch of life jackets towards the illegal migrants.FULL STORY HERE.
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00:00Your reaction, if I could, to those astonishing videos there, literally handing out free life jackets mid-channel.
00:07And you note, again, a total absence of women and children.
00:12That's right. Well, first of all, congratulations to Mark and GB News for uncovering that shocking footage.
00:16And it is shocking because what we saw were French authorities actively facilitating the passage of illegal immigrants across the channel.
00:25As you just pointed out, entirely young men, not a single woman or child in sight on that video at all.
00:33They are breaking into the country and the French maritime authorities are facilitating that happening.
00:38Now, I completely agree with what Tony Smith said just a few minutes ago on your clip.
00:43The French should be either intercepting on the shore and they do do some of that.
00:47They intercept about half of them, but that's obviously not enough.
00:49The rest are they can't intercept on the shore. They should intercept at sea, close to the French shore and take them back.
00:57And if that was happening, if all of these boats were cut off near the French shore, pretty soon the illegal immigrants would stop attempting the crossing in the first place.
01:06It stands to reason they wouldn't bother making the attempt.
01:09But instead, the French authorities are shepherding these boats to the median line, the line in the middle where border force picked them up.
01:16I think it's completely unacceptable. The French should start intercepting.
01:19And if they don't, what our government should do is rapidly remove all of these illegal immigrants making the crossing to some other place outside Europe,
01:28either their country of origin or to some other place like Rwanda.
01:32And again, if these illegal immigrants were quickly removed from the UK, pretty soon they would stop attempting the crossing in the first place.
01:39I wonder if that's enough, because they would still get to our shores if we were to do that removal process.
01:45It wouldn't stop any of this jiggery-pokery. We can see on our screens now, it still wouldn't stem the tide, leaving Cali.
01:51We saw there, Chris Phil, amassing hundreds.
01:55And then this conveyor belt of customers, the icon on the screen there of the Ninja, that is the branding of the people smugglers.
02:02This is advertising. This is their sales vehicle. Now, the French Coast Guard are enabling this grotesque business.
02:10I put it to you, Chris Phil, it's time we stop paying the French any money. Half a billion quid a year we're given for this nonsense.
02:15Yeah, well, I think what the government should be doing is saying that if the French want to receive that money,
02:20then they should be intercepting not just some migrants, but all migrants, if necessary, at sea.
02:26And it's quite easy to do. Do it near the shore. The dinghies are very visible. They're not hard to find, particularly once they're on the water.
02:33And if the French intercepted them near the shore, they wouldn't get anywhere near British waters.
02:37And we should be setting that as a condition of the funding.
02:40And you know what? That would actually serve the French interest as well, because pretty soon the migrants would stop attempting the crossing.
02:46And all of these camps around Calais and Boulogne and all the criminal gangs running around Calais and Boulogne would pretty soon stop.
02:53Do the French want to stop this? Why would they want to stem the tide when it's a problem they're relieved of if they come to Dover?
03:02Yeah, well, that is what's been happening so far.
03:04But I think actually, if the French just stop and think about it for a minute,
03:07it doesn't serve the French interest to have thousands of migrants in camps around Calais and Boulogne waiting to make the transit
03:13or having dangerous armed criminal gangs running amok around Calais and Dunkirk.
03:17So if they were to stop the route completely by intercepting boats at sea, pretty soon all of those people would go away somewhere else.
03:25But so far, the French haven't got that message.
03:26So maybe connecting it to the money would be the answer.
03:29But again, if the French won't do that, we need to return every single person whose foot sets offshore on British sand
03:36to some other place like Rwanda or somewhere else to stop it in the first place.
03:40And Australia did that about 10 years ago.
03:42And within a few months, the illegal immigrants stopped coming to Australia.
03:46And Australia did that about 10 years ago.
03:46And Australia did that about 10 years ago.