Calais migrants say Brexit vote will make it easier for them to cross the Channel

23:11, 24 JUN 2016 UPDATED 09:31, 25 JUN 2016 BYPAUL BYRNE


One refugee admits it's been 'tough' to go to the UK but the Brexit vote will let France send more migrants to Britain

Migrants heading for Britain say the momentous decision to quit the EU will make it easier for them to cross the Channel.

And on Friday night there were calls by politicians in France for the notorious “Jungle” camp in Calais to be closed and moved to Dover.

Immigration was an issue that motivated thousands of Britons to vote Leave but everyone we spoke to in the Jungle insisted this would not stop them heading for the UK.

There is a widespread belief among the 4,500 people in the ramshackle shelters that French police will now turn a blind eye to their nightly attempts to cross the Channel.

Jan, 27, an Afghan who did not want to give his surname, had just returned to the camp after spending the night trying in vain to board a UK-bound lorry.

Nursing a bandaged right arm – the result, he claims, of a beating from French police – he said: “Everything is very tough now, they don’t let people go to the UK.

“But if the UK is out of the EU, France is going to say, ‘Bye bye, you are out, now take your refugees’.”

The Leave vote was welcomed by the Right-wing mayor of Calais, Natacha Bouchart.

She wants to renegotiate the Le Touquet accord, the 2003 treaty that allows British border officers to check passports in Calais.

It effectively places part of Britain’s border with France in the French port and allows migrants and refugees to be held back there.

Mrs Bouchart says the border should be taken back to the UK, which would move the migrant camps to Kent.

The Le Touquet Treaty is not linked to our EU membership and the French could have backed out at any time, providing they give two years’ notice.

But last night, Xavier Bertrand, the head of the Republican party in the Pas-de-Calais, tweeted: “The English wanted to take back their freedom, they will have to take back their border.

In Dover, however, the prospect of migrant camps in Britain did not worry serving soldier Kyle Cook, 24, who voted Leave.

He said: “I think we are taken advantage of by migrants but I don’t have any fear of a Jungle camp over here – and even if there was, it’s nothing that the British security services couldn’t deal with very professionally.”

But Sue Gatland, 64, who voted Remain, said: “I feel very apprehensive for the future now. I feel very concerned and feel the French will swap the border as soon as they can.

“Now we’re coming out they’re only going to try and get over here thicker and faster.”

Her friend Sue Walmesley, 67, agreed adding: “It’s fine for people in Dover to say they’re not worried but they should be.”

Calais migrants say Brexit vote will make it easier for them to cross the Channel - Mirror Online