Roger Howard

Should Britain send migrants to France’s former African colonies?

(Photo: Getty)

The cross-Channel migrant crisis would perhaps be solved in a single stroke if only French patrols would tow the boats back to their mainland, or allowed their British counterparts to do the same: after all, the Australians have eliminated the problem by adopting the same approach. But how can we, on this side of the Channel, prompt the French authorities to undertake this sensible and obvious course of action, one that would seem to be in everyone’s interest?

One way of doing so would be to relocate newly-arrived Channel migrants not just to Rwanda but to some of France’s former colonies. Our own government could reach out to some of France’s former territories in West Africa, for example. Some of these countries offer the migrants enough ‘health, security and wellbeing’ to avoid enraging our Human Rights Industry. Ivory Coast, Senegal and Benin are obvious candidates and perhaps, in the future, so will Niger.

Relocating our Channel migrants to such countries offers several advantages.

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