Chris Philp has described confronting French police after they watched migrants board dinghies for England, saying they told him they had been ordered not to intervene.
In an article for the Sunday Express, the Shadow Home Secretary recounts his trip across the Channel this week. The visit drew sharp criticism from the Government and French authorities, and he published footage showing dozens of migrants boarding dinghies. The footage also appears to show two French law enforcement officers telling him they had orders not to intervene.
"What I saw was extraordinary," Mr Philp writes. He describes vivid scenes of "young men pushing women off the boats and back into the water, and the French police standing idly by doing absolutely nothing".
Payments to France under scrutiny
Britain pays France hundreds of millions of pounds as part of an agreement intended to see officers on the other side of the Channel intercept migrants before they cross. "We keep handing over the cash, and they keep paying lip service to the agreement we have with them," Mr Philp writes.
The intervention comes after a week of chaos at sea, despite Prime Minister Andy Burnham claiming the plan to tackle the crisis was "working". Earlier this week Mr Burnham said that overall crossings were down, "so that does suggest that the plan is working."
Ceuta border crisis and warnings
Elsewhere, tens of thousands crossed into Ceuta in North Africa during a border crisis. Ceuta's regional government president Juan Jesus Vivas said 60,000 people entered from Morocco. Around half are thought to have returned.
Mr Philp warned that if those migrants can access the European mainland, "there is nothing to stop them coming straight to Calais and trying to get a boat across the Channel".
He added that his party's policy was to "leave the European Convention on Human Rights, enabling all illegal immigrants to be deported within a week of arrival – with no asylum claim, no human rights claim and no court hearing". The British Government has offered support to Spain to deal with the situation.
