Riot police to tackle small boat migrants

RIOT police will be sent on to French beaches to stop migrants crossing the Channel under a fresh multi-million-pound deal with the UK.

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Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is expected to sign a three-year £662million agreement with France on Thursday which could see a 50-strong squad of police officers, trained in “riot and crowd control tactics”, drafted in to tackle violence and “hostile crowds” at the water's edge among a series of measures to stop migrants boarding boats.

The Home Office said the number of officers sent to curb attempted journeys from northern France to Britain will also rise by about 42% when the agreement comes into force in the summer. Part of the funding will be conditional on cutting the numbers of arrivals for the first time since the start of the migrant crisis, the UK Government said.