Protestors stand in solidarity with refugees
Anti-racists have slammed British and French politicians’ attempts to hide their responsibility for the deaths of refugees in the English Channel.
Several refugees—including a child—died on Saturday while trying to make it to safety in Britain.
Three people have died off the coast of Calais and another one near Boulogne, according to the French newspaper La Voix Du Nord.
One of the boats, which was heading towards Britain, called for assistance on Saturday morning. A nearby vessel rescued 14 people from the refugees’ boat, including a dead “minor” and another injured person, according to French maritime authorities.
The injured person has been airlifted to hospital in Boulogne, while the boat continued its journey.
The French interior minister Bruno Retailleau—the equivalent of the British home secretary—said the child was “trampled to death in a boat”.
He said it was a “terrible tragedy” and people smugglers “have the blood of these people on their hands”.
Retailleau pushes the same line as the Labour government in Britain. A Home Office spokesman said, “We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.
“As we have seen with so many recent devastating tragedies in the Channel, the people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay.
“We will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.
In reality, it’s the French and British governments that have blood on their hands—and a crackdown only makes more death inevitable.
French refugee charity Utopia 56 slammed the minister of the interior, saying, “This morning, a child of about four years old died while crossing the Channel. This is what Bruno Retailleau calls a ‘negative consequence of his ‘effective’ border policy.”
It added, “We will continue to denounce the culpable action of states and to support the families.”
Stand To Racism (SUTR) demanded safe and legal routes and slammed politician’ scapegoating. SUTR co-convenor Weyman Bennett told Socialist Worker, “The drownings are the consequence of no safe passage and concessions to the far right’s politics of attacking refugees.
“The government promised that it would break from Tory racism and Labour evidently fails to do that. The whole system has failed refugees.”
He added, “This is just a green light to Tommy Robinson and Reform UK and endorses their rhetoric and viciousness towards refugees.”
Britain other states from the G7 group agreed an “anti-smuggling action plan “designed to boost co-operation on the issue following talks in Italy. Keir Starmer stood next to Italy’s fascist prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, last month and said he was “very interested” in copying the country’s racist deportations scheme
The French and British governments say they want to clamp down on people smugglers. But traffickers are only small-time gangsters whose business model relies on Britain’s and European Union’s racist immigration rules.
If refugees had safe and legal routes to Britain and Europe, they wouldn’t be forced into the hands of organised criminals.
Every time politicians have ramped up border security, it has only forced people seeking a new life to use deadlier means. And every time refugees drown or freeze in the back of a lorry as a result, politicians respond with calls for a tougher security—which only ensures yet more deaths.
The Labour government’s scapegoating of refugees gives succour to Nigel Farage’s far right Reform UK party and Nazi Tommy Robinson’s street thugs.
The refugees are fleeing the West’s wars, dictatorship, poverty and climate chaos. Anti-racists have to demand safe passage, fight the Starmer government’s scapegoating and the far right forces that he fuels.
Racism first developed as a justification for enslavement
