{"id":263336,"date":"2025-07-14T04:38:21","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T04:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/263336\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T04:38:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T04:38:21","slug":"badenoch-hits-out-at-macron-blaming-increased-migrant-crossings-on-brexit-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/263336\/","title":{"rendered":"Badenoch hits out at Macron blaming increased migrant crossings on Brexit \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kemi Badenoch has hit out at Emmanuel Macron\u2019s suggestion that Brexit is the cause for a rise in the number of small boats crossing the English Channel.<\/p>\n

The Conservative leader, a supporter of the leave campaign in the 2016 referendum, also said it was time for \u201cpeople to stop blaming Brexit\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the French President said the British people had been \u201csold a lie\u201d that leaving the EU would \u201cmake it possible to fight more effectively against illegal immigration\u201d, as he spoke at a press conference alongside Sir Keir Starmer.<\/p>\n

His comments came at the end of a three-day state visit, during which he and Sir Keir agreed a landmark deal to return people arriving in the UK via small boats in exchange for people still in France who had a connection to Britain.<\/p>\n

\"Anglian<\/a>\"Keira<\/a>\"FrenchFrench President Emmanuel Macron as he holds a press conference with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer during a joint military visit in London (Leon Neal\/PA) <\/p>\n

As Mrs Badenoch visited Stansted Airport on Friday, she was asked by the PA news agency if she agreed with Mr Macron\u2019s assessment.<\/p>\n

She replied: \u201cNo, I don\u2019t agree with him, because Italy has seen a significant increase, France has seen a significant increase in illegal migration, even the US has seen a significant increase in illegal migration.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrexit didn\u2019t impact any of those countries. It\u2019s time for people to stop blaming Brexit for problems and actually start coming up with solutions for the new problems that are affecting our country. That\u2019s what Government is there for.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of the issues which we came in and dealt with in 2010-2015, have changed, and that is why the Conservative Party under my leadership is looking at how we fix the problems of today, not keep focusing on the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pointing to the fact that the UK had \u201cno migratory deal\u201d with the EU after Brexit, Mr Macron on Thursday said: \u201cIt creates an incentive to make the crossing, the precise opposite of what Brexit had promised.\u201d<\/p>\n

The French President also hailed previous success in preventing illegal crossings of the Channel by road and rail prior to Brexit.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cLet\u2019s recall a few years ago, it was the subject of daily comments. We managed to fully close off these routes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boat crossings have increased sharply since Britain formally left the EU, rising from 1,843 people making the journey in 2019 to 28,526 in 2021 and 45,774 in 2022.<\/p>\n

\"HomeHome Secretary Yvette Cooper would not be drawn on whether she was in agreement with the French leader (Stefan Rousseau\/PA) <\/p>\n

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper would earlier not be drawn on whether she agreed with Mr Macron.<\/p>\n

Asked about his remarks, the Home Secretary told Sky News: \u201cI think what I\u2019ve seen happen is that the way that the criminal smuggler gangs operate is that they will weaponise anything that is happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so what we saw in the run-up to Brexit being implemented was we saw criminal gangs promising people that they had to cross quickly, and they had to pay money to the smuggler gangs quickly in order to be able to cross in time before Brexit happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as Brexit happened, they then said \u2018Oh, well, now you\u2019ve got to pay us money, because this means you can\u2019t be returned because the Dublin Agreement isn\u2019t in place.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the thing about the criminal smuggler gangs is whatever arrangements are in place, they will use them in order to make money, but that\u2019s why we have to be fundamentally undermining their model.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kemi Badenoch has hit out at Emmanuel Macron\u2019s suggestion that Brexit is the cause for a rise in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,34,5502,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,1198,5805,6657,285,19191,16,15,5113],"class_list":{"0":"post-263336","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-emmanuel-macron","11":"tag-english-channel","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-european","15":"tag-european-union","16":"tag-great-britain","17":"tag-kemi-badenoch","18":"tag-migrants","19":"tag-migration","20":"tag-politics","21":"tag-small-boat-crossings","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-yvette-cooper"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114849743308875990","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}