New migrant routes could be opening up along the south coast following Sunday’s unprecedented Channel crossing, Isle of Wight MP Joe Robertson has warned.
The Isle of Wight East MP has written urgently to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood after around 150 migrants travelled across the Channel in a single ‘mega-dinghy’, sparking a major operation involving Island lifeboats.
Robertson says the events have ‘not been seen before along our part of the coast’, highlighting that the Isle of Wight is around 80 miles from France – almost 4 times the distance between Kent and France.
Warning that people smugglers could now be turning their attention further west, he said:
“What we saw yesterday does point towards a worrying possibility – that new Channel crossing routes are opening up.
“It appears that an 80-mile stretch of open water is no longer a deterrent to people smugglers.
“If this is the case then much of the south coast of England could see small boat crossings in the future.”
Robertson is demanding to know what assessment the Home Office has made of other coastal areas becoming vulnerable and what preparations are underway should regular crossings begin further west.
He has also questioned whether measures announced by the Prime Minister during French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent visit are ‘inadequate and targeted in the wrong place’.
As previously reported by Island Echo, Bembridge and Yarmouth RNLI lifeboats were tasked at around 10:35 on Sunday to a large migrant vessel roughly halfway between the Isle of Wight and Cherbourg.
Those onboard were eventually brought ashore at Eastney in Portsmouth before being transferred to the Home Office’s Manston processing centre in Kent.
Robertson has praised the Island’s volunteer lifeboat crews, with Bembridge’s crew spending more than 12 hours at sea.
He said:
“The RNLI is a charity established to save lives at sea and respond to boats in danger. It is not the job of the Lifeboat to police UK waters.
“Anyone entering the UK with no legal right to be here should be deported without delay by the Home Office, but when it comes to saving lives, every life matters no matter where you are from.”
Robertson is now awaiting an ‘urgent response’ from the Home Secretary.
