United Kingdom to reject changes to Calais border deal

Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French leader who is running for his party’s nomination for next year’s presidential race, has called for the opening of a centre in Britain to deal with the asylum seekers. “It might make it worse – I think it would make it worse, nearly certainly”.

While the 51-year-old does not have the power to change the treaty, the two presidential hopefuls who lead the polls both want to scrap or change the ruling. “They depend on us for a lot of security advice and co- operation after the Nice attack”, the source said.

The Calais region prefecture says that since March, 55 children have been able to join families in Britain – the dream of most Calais migrants.

And speaking on BBC Radio 4 on Monday morning, Devon’s Conservative MP Charlie Elphicke said: “France clearly has suffered some serious terrorist atrocities – we need to stand with France”.

He said: “We will not continue to guard the border for Britain if it’s no longer in the European Union”.

A spokesman said: ‘As part of the ongoing action we are taking to secure our borders, we have invested tens of millions of pounds to bolster security at ports in northern France.

Despite fears over the future of the treaty, it is not on the agenda of Mrs Rudd’s meeting with Mr Cazeneuve.

It is understood Home Secretary Theresa May will go to Paris this week to discuss the treaty.

The U.K. Home Office maintains that it has a good relationship with France on immigration and protecting the Calais border.

A departmental spokesperson added: “The French government has repeatedly made it clear that removing the juxtaposed controls would not be in the interests of France”.

At the beginning of July, French president Francois Hollande and then prime minister David Cameron affirmed their shared commitment to keeping the arrangement.

The Home Office said it believed in the “established principle, enshrined in the Dublin Regulation, that those in need of protection should seek asylum in the first safe country they enter”. “That’s the long-held global norm, and we’re going to stick to it”.

In the past two years, the population of the camps has swelled as warfare and economic upheaval in North Africa and the Middle East has driven thousands of migrants to try to reach Britain illegally through the Channel Tunnel. “After all, the same terror networks that threaten France threaten security on British streets too”, Burnham said.

He also suggested Sarkozy had no more importance than other “local politicians” who had called for an end to the current cross-border deal.

Sending the United Kingdom border controls back to Kent would create chaos for cross-Channel freight traffic.

So it was inevitable perhaps that the “Jungle” camp would become a key battleground as Juppe and Sarkozy court supporters to secure the Republican nomination by moving their tanks on to Marine le Pen’s lawn.