'Where are the police?' Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp follows migrants to a dinghy live on LBC - as he questions value of £662m deal with France
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp has blasted the Prime Minister as "completely out of touch" for claiming that Labour's plan to stop the boats is working. Mr Philp spoke to LBC this morning live from a beach in northern France while following closely behind a group of migrants preparing to make the crossing to the UK.He walked alongside a group of around 30 men, women and children along a beach as they made a long walk in the sun towards a staging area where they would await the dinghy that would transport them across the Channel.In April, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood signed a three-year £662m agreement with France to stop illegal migrants from crossing the English Channel.The deal was said to involve France deploying millions of pounds worth of drones, two helicopters, and a camera system to intercept people smugglers and illegal migrants, as well as at least 50 police officers, trained in "riot and crowd control tactics", drafted in to tackle violence and "hostile crowds".However, there was no sign of any of this this morning as the group walked in broad daylight down a beach just south of Boulogne-sur-Mer followed by Mr Philp, who was speaking exclusively to LBC at the time.Read more: Burnham pledges 'everything I've got' into fixing social care as he invites political rivals to work with him on issueRead more: Zack Polanski says he made ‘inadvertent mistake’ over Nigel Farage guillotine image but refuses to apologise
Conservative MP Chris Philp has lambasted the Prime Minister as "completely out of touch" for claiming that Labour's plan to stop the boats is working, as he followed a group of migrants preparing to make the crossing to the UK down a French beach.
Picture:
Global
"I have been trying to find groups of illegal immigrants about to cross the Channel to the UK, and as you can see, I have caught up with one such group of 40 or so people, mainly young men from sub-Saharan Africa."There are also no French police at all," he told Nick Ferrari at Breakfast."This group is very conspicuous, as you can see, yet there are no French gendarmes anywhere to be seen, even though Shabana Mahmood is paying them half a billion pounds of our money. "If I can track down a group of illegal immigrants in the space of about four hours, the French gendarmes certainly should be able to."
While following the group, Mr Philp told Nick Ferrari that the alleged people smuggler was wearing a "massive Rolex" as he led the group towards the dinghy. He said that they found one group of migrants in a woodland after around two hours of looking for one, and the group walking along the beach two hours after that.Mr Philp claimed the group are walking towards a boat that will be launched from a rendezvous point in the region of Dieppe.The Tory told LBC: "If these people were genuinely fleeing for their lives and wanted to claim asylum, they can certainly do so, in France. "The reason they're crossing, of course, is they know the government will provide them with a nice hotel, and the chances of them ever getting deported, are only about 5 per cent. "They've got a 95 per cent chance of staying in the UK, which is why they're about to pay a people smuggler to get on a dinghy."
Between 2018 and 2025, around 193,000 people arrived in the UK via a small boat, with 46,000 making the crossing in 2022. .
Picture:
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Mr Philp issued a message to Ms Mahmood that the "deal is not working," despite the millions of pounds spent on trying to crack down on the number of people making the crossing. Andy Burnham has said that "overall boat crossings" are down "significantly" year on year, which he says suggests "the plan is working".Between 2018 and 2025, around 193,000 people arrived in the UK via a small boat, with 46,000 making the crossing in 2022. Approximately 36,000 people arrived by small boat in the year ending May 31, 2026, which was 13 per cent fewer than the year previously.In 2025, 2,600 people who made the crossing were returned to another country.The Tory MP is calling for the Government to adopt the Tory party's plan to tackle immigration, wherein migrants get deported immediately upon arrival, in a bid to stop people from even making the journey."Andy Burnham is completely out of touch when he says this problem is solved," he added."They need to urgently adopt our plan, which is to exit the ECHR so illegal migrants can be deported immediately upon arrival in the UK, and then they wouldn't bother making the crossing in the first place."
In 2025, 2,600 people who made the crossing were returned to another country.
Picture:
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
The Tory MP's latest stunt follows an incident, which took place on Tuesday morning near Cap Grinez, where a French warship allegedly opened fire on his boat during a day of filming in the Channel.The MP accused the French Navy of "attempted intimidation" after uploading the footage to social media.Describing the interaction between the British and French vessels, Mr Philp revealed the Navy ship "approached" his boat before it "fired 17 live rounds behind us". Posting the clip to X yesterday, Mr Philp wrote: "On the channel today monitoring illegal migrant crossings … as I was being interviewed by the BBC just now a French warship approached close and fired 17 live rounds behind us.
He added: "There was no notice or training exercise in place. Felt like warning shots or attempted intimidation."The incident happened while the vessels were around 300-metres apart, with Mr Philp revealing that the "boat’s skipper has never seen anything like this before". "There was no notice in place about live firing exercises. There was no warning over the radio or anything else,” he explained.It comes as Home Office data shows 13 small boats arrived in the UK between 20th and 26th July. Those small boats were carrying 881 migrants across the Channel, according to the latest figures.According to The Times, who was with Mr Philp on the boat at the time of the incident, a French Navy officer fired 17 shots from a handgun as he stood on the ship's stern.
Mr Philp has served as Shadow Home Secretary since November 2024.
Picture:
Alamy
The shots were not fired in the direction of the MP, according to reports.Warships are often seen conducting small arms firing at sea, with the practice often considered part of Naval training routines.It's not the first time such an incident has taken place in the Channel in recent weeks, after a Russian warship was seen to fire on a British yacht last month. 'It was surreal,' the British couple said as they described the incident, with Russia's Defence Ministry insisting the yacht had been on a "dangerous approach" towards the warship".
