FRANCE is refusing to allow British boots on Calais beaches to stop migrant crossings, Priti Patel claimed today.
The Home Secretary said her offer of Border Force guards and cops to beef up Channel patrols has been snubbed.
She made the dig during a stormy grilling in the Commons over the small boats crisis that’s infuriating Tory MPs.
Last week it was revealed only five asylum seekers out of 24,000 who’ve made the treacherous crossing this year have been returned.
Angry Conservative backbenchers are demanding urgent action to bring down the numbers and rounded on Ms Patel this afternoon after she was summoned to Parliament to explain herself.
Tory Craig Mackinley told the Home Sec: “Could I recommend you make a very broad and generous offer to her French counterparts and ask how many British police, Border Force and perhaps troops we can put on site on the beaches in France to assist them in their efforts and to arrest more evil people smugglers?
Ms Patel replied: “Just to put the honourable gentleman’s mind at ease – I’ve done exactly that.”
Sources close to the minister said the government has offered Border Force and police officers but have been turned down.
This summer the Home Secretary agreed to pay France £54million for their help blocking crossings.
Britain refuses to say how much of the cash has been wired but claims 19,000 crossings have been stopped this year.
Anglo-Franco relations have since soured over the Aukus defence pact and post-Brexit fishing rights.
Tory MP Marco Longhi today suggested the UN should investigate France “given there are so many persecuted people in Calais”.
Fellow Red Waller Lee Anderson fumed: “Seeing thousands and thousands of illegal immigrants coming across the Channel is not the points-based immigration system I thought we were going to adopt when we got to this place.”
Earlier Nadhim Zahawi said preventing treacherous Channel crossings was “a tough one” but insisted Ms Priti had a plan to slash the numbers.
The Education Secretary warned the migration crisis should “worry us all”.
The Iraqi-born Education Secretary – whose parents fled Saddam Hussein when he was a baby – said asylum seekers crossing the sea in rickety dinghies were taking an “extraordinary” risk.
The Nationality and Borders Bill is currently passing through Parliament, but Tory MPs are demanding instant action.
