SUELLA BRAVERMAN’S multimillion-pound deal with France will fail to stop small-boat crossings and risks putting more money into the hands of traffickers, campaigners warned today. 

The Home Secretary signed a deal with her French counterpart allowing British officers to join patrols along the French coast for the first time. 

The arrangement promises a 40 per cent increase in the number of patrols deployed to detect small boats about to attempt the crossing to southern England.

The deal, which bring the amount of funding given to France to some €72 million (£63m) for 2022-23, also includes the use of drones, night vision equipment and greater surveillance around ports, with more CCTV and sniffer dogs. 

Refugee and human rights groups condemned the agreement, warning that the government’s approach to small-boat crossings fails to address the need for safe routes. 

Amnesty International accused the government of “recycling the same failed response.

“The inevitable result will be more dangerous journeys and more profits led by ruthless smuggling gangs and other serious criminals exploiting the refusal of the UK and French government to take and share responsibility,” said Amnesty’s refugee and migrant rights director Steve Valdez-Symonds. 

“Unless the UK government accepts its share of people into its asylum system, particularly people with family and connections in the UK, there seems little prospect that anything is going to change, let alone improve.”

The deal comes despite human rights groups repeatedly warning that increasing securitisation of the borders risks causing more deaths as people resort to taking more dangerous routes to avoid being detected.

Care4Calais founder Clare Moseley said: “The government is ignoring the fact that the majority of people in Calais are genuine refugees in desperate need.

“It’s not right to be focused solely on stopping them from coming when they are here purely to ask for our help. We know it’s possible to give people safe passage. We did it for Ukrainian refugees, so why not do it for other refugees?

“As we approach the one-year anniversary of the horrific deaths of 32 people in the Channel, there is no excuse for not taking action to save the lives of people who have escaped from the most terrible things on this planet.”

The deal was signed just one week before the first anniversary of a tragedy in which at least 27 people, including three children, drowned in the English Channel after their boat capsized. Some blamed the incident on British authorities’ failure to offer safe routes to asylum-seekers and the increase in border security. 

Freedom from Torture chief executive Steve Crawshaw said: “This is the fifth deal of its kind in four years, all of which have proven that greater securitisation of the border does not reduce the numbers attempting to cross the Channel and simply increases the profits of the traffickers.”

Trade unions representing Border Force officers also questioned whether the plans would reduce the number of small-boat crossings. 

Kevin Mills, a PCS union representative for staff in Kent, said: “This deal is not enough and the lack of detail is telling.

“If you stop thousands today and let most of them go, how many are just going to try again tomorrow? There is no plan, as far as I can see.”

The accord, signed in Paris by Ms Braverman and French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, also foresees the introduction of a new task force to address a rise in the number of Albanians crossing the Channel.

“Reception centres” will be set up in southern France to “deter” people coming into the country from “moving to the Channel coast,” according to Home Office policy papers.