Britain and France have signed a new agreement that will double the number of police being deployed to try to stop migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats.

Home Secretary Priti Patel and her French counterpart Gerald Darman hope the deal will make the route used by more than 8,000 people this year ‘unviable.’

The extra officers will patrol a 150km stretch of coastline targeted by people-smuggling networks and try to stop boats before they’ve had a chance to disembark.

The two politicians also agreed to use more surveillance technology including drones, radar equipment, cameras and optronic binoculars, to help officers detect where and when boats might be planning to set off.

A charity criticised the announcement as an ‘extraordinary mark of failure’ akin to ‘rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic’.

The agreement also includes steps to support migrants into accommodation in France, and measures to increase border security at ports in the north and west of the country.

It builds on measures previously agreed which the Home Office said had seen the proportion of crossings intercepted and stopped rise from 41% last year to 60% in recent weeks.

Ms Patel said the new agreement with France will ‘make a difference’ to the number of migrants crossing the Channel.

Speaking inside the Foreign Office following talks with her French counterpart, she said: ‘We know that the French authorities have stopped over 5,000 migrants from crossing into the United Kingdom, we’ve had hundreds of arrests and that’s because of the joint intelligence and communications that we share between both our authorities.

‘This new package today that I have just signed with my French counterpart, the French interior minister, effectively doubles the number of police on the French beaches, it invests in more technologies and surveillance – more radar technology that support the law enforcement effort – and on top of that we are now sharing in terms of toughening up our border security.’

She said the number of migrants making the crossing had grown exponentially, in part due to good weather this year, and blamed trafficking gangs for ‘facilitating’ dangerous journeys.

She said: ‘We should not lose sight of the fact that illegal migration exists for one fundamental reason: that is because there are criminal gangs – people traffickers – facilitating this trade.’

Despite deteriorating weather conditions, the UK’s Border Force has continued to deal with migrants making the dangerous trip from northern France.

The number crossing aboard small boats has rocketed this year, with more than 8,000 reaching the UK – compared with 1,835 in 2019, according to data analysed by the PA news agency.

This is despite the Home Secretary’s vow last year to make such journeys an ‘infrequent phenomenon’.

A recent report chronicled nearly 300 border-related deaths in and around the English Channel since 1999.

The Home Office has not revealed how many more officer in total will be deployed as part of the deal.

Bella Sankey, director of humanitarian charity Detention Action, said: ‘It is an extraordinary mark of failure that the Home Secretary is announcing with such fanfare that she is rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

‘No amount of massaging the numbers masks her refusal to take the sensible step of creating a safe and legal route to the UK from northern France, thereby preventing crossings and child deaths.

‘Instead she throws taxpayers’ money away on more of the same measures that stand no chance of having a significant impact on this dangerous state of affairs.’

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