France rejects UK plans to turn around migrants at sea

The home secretary, Priti Patel, was accused by France’s interior minister of plotting “financial blackmail” and a violation of international maritime law in a deepening diplomatic row over efforts to prevent migrants from crossing the Channel by boat.

Gérald Darmanin rejected UK plans, released last Wednesday, to return boats into French waters. “France will not accept any practice that breaks maritime law, nor any financial blackmail,” Darmanin wrote on Twitter.

Patel who is under pressure from Boris Johnson and fellow Conservative MPs to halt the crossings, claimed to have secured legal advice for Border Force vessels to start redirecting migrant boats away from UK waters and towards France, where authorities would have to return them to shore.

Patel also faced a growing revolt in parliament and the country this week over plans to restrict the fundamental right to protest, as controversial legislation that would increase police powers entered the House of Lords.

More than 350 organisations, including human rights groups, charities and faith bodies, wrote to Patel and justice secretary Robert Buckland complaining that the measures would have a “profound impact” on freedom of expression, and represent “an attack on some of the most basic democratic rights of citizens”.

One former Labour home secretary, Lord Blunkett, said the bill would leave a “toxic” mark on British society if it were to pass into law.