The International Organization for Migration said the tragedy marked the single biggest known loss of life on the busy waterway since it began collecting data in 2014. And an editorial cartoon in The Times of London depicted migrants packed into a boat in the shape of a coffin, vividly underscoring the risks people take in seeking a better life.
The tragedy set off yet another spat between the UK and France, two countries whose relations have become increasingly frayed in the aftermath of Brexit. On Thursday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson published a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron, proposing, among other things, an agreement to “allow all illegal migrants who cross the Channel to be returned” — a suggestion the French have previously rejected.
A French government spokesman said the letter was “both poor in content and completely inappropriate in its form,” while France’s interior minister announced Britain’s home secretary was no longer invited to a meeting in Calais on Sunday to discuss how to stop the crossings and trafficking syndicates.
In response to growing pressure to make a more forceful intervention, France said that it would improve surveillance of its northern shores. However, SKY News broadcast video on Thursday apparently showing French police looking on as a group of people prepared to enter the channel’s dangerous waters.
Playing politics
Sadly, the political situation on both sides of the channel may make for front-page headlines but creates little space for impactful problem-solving.
For Johnson, a former journalist who is a master at political spin, the optics of standing up to the French and pushing back against asylum-seekers could be beneficial for a government that campaigned on taking back control and sovereignty from the European Union. But it might be difficult to make a convincing case that Brexit improved matters of sovereignty and border control when there have been far more channel crossings in 2021 so far compared to…
Source : cnn
