British Prime Minister David Cameron Holds Emergency Meeting Over Migrant Influx

Options to relieve chronic traffic back-ups on the M20 motorway are being considered but specific locations to hold trucks unable to pass through the Tunnel are yet to be confirmed.

Mr Cameron called the situation “unacceptable” and said: “This is going to be a hard issue right across the summer”.

Police deployed an extra 120 officers to Calais earlier this week but hundreds of migrants including young children made renewed attempts last night to get through the Channel Tunnel.

The prediction comes as police and social services are already struggling to cope with the impact of the events across the Channel, while businesses, lorry drivers and residents have been hit by the resulting travel chaos in Kent.

But the groups gathered near Channel tunnel entry points and Eurotunnel freight loading areas were a fraction of the numbers that stormed police lines earlier in the week. “We are absolutely on it. We know it needs more work”.

Cameron chaired an emergency security meeting Friday just after returning from a trip to Asia.

Speaking with the backing of the church, the bishop of Dover accused senior political figures, including the prime minister, of forgetting their humanity and attacked elements of the media for propagating a “toxicity” designed to spread antipathy towards migrants.

“We rule nothing out in taking action to deal with this very serious problem”, he said. So people come through to our country and they are educated and they can speak English and they’ve got a skill, that means they can work in the country.

This may include a temporary freight overspill at Ebbsfleet, while increasing ferry capacity on different routes is also being explored.

But the measures have been described as “sticking plasters” by some critics.

In the second letter Nicola Sturgeon has sent to the Prime Minister on the matter, she said: ” Our primary concern over the current situation in Calais must be to play our part in addressing the underlying humanitarian issues. Britain is not a member of the Schengen zone.

“The wheels really came off the wagon two weeks ago because the ferry workers went on strike”, he said.

Jack Straw, the former home and foreign secretary, suggested European Union states should consider reintroducing border checks.

“You now see the price that Europe is paying, as well as the United Kingdom is paying for this completely open border arrangement”, he told BBC Radio 4’s World at One.

Numerous migrants in France are determined to make it to Britain, which remains a magnet for several reasons.

The government has said it is working to erect new security fencing around the French port of Calais, the flashpoint for the crisis.

Peter Harding, who runs a road haulage firm out of Haverford West, West Wales, said he had been forced to stop sending his trucks through the French port given the risk to drivers and the cost of insurance claims after padlocks had been smashed by migrants trying to hide inside containers.