London plans patrols to stop boats carrying refugees
The British government plans to take steps to ensure that fewer migrants enter the country via the English Channel. Around 4,000 people have already made the crossing this year - twice as many as in the whole of 2019. Home Secretary Priti Patel has complained that France was doing too little to stop the crossings. Royal Navy ships are to be deployed to force small boats carrying migrants to turn back. The national press is divided on the issue.
Detain them all
The Spectator calls for a comprehensive crackdown on asylum seekers:
“Ritual condemnations of the French and the parading of a few Royal Navy vessels in front of the cameras will not satisfy these voters. ... Universal detention of asylum applicants and a commitment not to allow any failed asylum-seeker to live in our society will have to be components of such a new approach. Very probably ID cards will also feature. Quite possibly the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights will have to be cast aside and the Human Rights Act repealed. Maybe long-term offshore accommodation for those refusing to return to their country of origin will need to be part of the mix.”
Asserting a human right is not criminal
The Guardian has no sympathy for London's ideas:
“Having set their face against the EU with their campaign to 'take back control' and lacking a plan to replace the Dublin Convention, which enables EU countries to remove some asylum seekers, ministers now appear to be panicking. How else to describe the threats by the home secretary, Priti Patel, to make the navy force boats back to France? ... What does it mean for Boris Johnson to declare crossing the Channel in a small boat to be 'dangerous and criminal', when people have the right to travel to claim asylum under UN rules dating back to 1951?”