Early July saw legislative elections in both France and the UK, resulting in wins for parties on the left on both sides of the Channel. We call upon the newly elected MPs to work on policies based on solidarity and dignity instead of continuing the current discriminatory practices and militarization of the border.

In the UK, the new Labour government has fortunately scrapped the disgraceful Rwanda scheme. They have also disapplied parts of the Illegal Migration Act, meaning that asylum claims from people that arrived after 20 July 2023 can finally be processed. However, Labour is continuing to put forward migration policies based on repression. Rather than creating safe routes to apply for asylum, Keir Starmer has announced the creation of a new Border Security Command with 'counter terrorism-style’ powers.

Such approaches have been tried time and again in the UK and in other countries. The last few years have also seen a steady increase in British funding for repression of people on the move in France, with the UK committing to spend as much as 476 million pounds in three years between 2023 and 2026, up from about 319 million over the course of eight years between 2014 and 2022. Such approaches have not been proven to reduce numbers and end up only putting people on the move at further risk. As researcher and journalist David Suber has put it, everytime “every time [this approach] has been tried, it effectively becomes a war on migrants.” This is very visible on the ground in Calais, where repressive police actions have become commonplace. In the meantime in the UK the oppressive anti-migrant rhetoric has emboldened the far-right, enabling the horrible racist and Islamophobic riots of this summer.

As Robinson and Su argue it’s “the declining rate of refugee resettlement and the absence of legal avenues [that] has forced refugees to use smugglers to cross borders to access refugee protection”. The only approach to save lives in the Channel - and in the meantime also making smuggling unnecessary - is to create safe routes for people to reach the UK. Currently possibilities to come to the UK safely are very limited to specific groups, like the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) and the Homes for Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme. For the large majority of people on the move no safe ways are available to go to the UK. This also includes many people that have family members in the UK, as set out in a recent report by Safe Passage International. In a recent heartbreaking example from the 20th of July two young children were separated from their parents during a chaotic embarkation of a small boat crossing from France to the UK. The family is now separated with the children being in the UK and the parents in France, with no safe means of reunification. Smuggling exists because safe passage doesn't - if the Labour government wants to end smuggling, the only path forward is to establish safe routes, not border commands.

Safe Passage International has also set out two ways in which safe routes to the UK could be implemented in an elaborate report published last year. The report provides an easily implementable blueprint for safer routes. On the one hand, they argue for an Emergency Protection Scheme for those fleeing humanitarian and human rights crises and are stuck in France or elsewhere on the European continent, as the majority of those undertaking dangerous Channel crossing are fleeing such crises. Such a scheme could be implemented relatively easily using online applications, similar to the existing scheme limited to people from Ukraine. Alternatively a referral system could be imagined, where an organisation such as the UNHCR would refer individuals to the scheme. On the other hand, they argue for a Refugee Visa Pilot offering safe routes to not only avoid the risks of a Channel crossing but also the risks of the journey towards continental Europe: from unsafe crossings of the mediterranean, to pushbacks and other human rights abuses across countries of transit. In this proposal protection would be based on a number of predefined protection categories and people would be able to apply online after having left the country they are fleeing, but before having made the rest of the dangerous journey towards Europe or the UK. Security and other checks could be part of the process, similar to in existing visa schemes, like e.g. the Skilled Worker visa. These are just two examples of concrete policy proposals as to how safe passage could be implemented.

Meanwhile, the situation in northern France continues to be problematic. People are sleeping rough without sufficient access to essential services, shelter, water and sanitation. As noted in the Universal Periodic Review of the United Nations, access to water, for example, is far below what is necessary. Access to laundry is also very limited, problematised further by the forced closure of our laundry centre for people on the move in Calais by the authorities. In Calais, Dunkirk and the surrounding area, evictions are continuing every 48 hours, usually early in the morning, impacting especially single men, but also women and families. That is what it means in practice if the new government continues to talk about strengthening border control. The UK and France are together in keeping this status quo present. The UK is paying for French repression efforts to try to keep people from departing. Instead the UK should make safe routes a possibility and contribute, together with the French government, to help people meet their basic needs while still stuck in the north of France.

Words by Martin Spelt. Photos by Dan Schoolar and Pavlina Hatzopoulos

A note to the new Labour government: save lives with safe passage, not border commands