Small boats UN migration chief calls for policy rethink

The head of the UN’s organisation for migration said yesterday that it was too late to stop people from crossing the Channel in small boats by the time they had reached northern France.

- Diane Taylor

Amy Pope, the director general of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), made the remarks as Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron prepared to announce measures to stop overloaded dinghies setting off from French shores to the UK.

Pope said making safe and orderly migration possible closer to the countries from which people were moving was a better approach. She added that the toxic anti-migrant narrative dominating much of UK politics should be removed, saying: “We have to make migration boring again.”

Much of the reporting of Macron’s state visit to the UK this week has focused on a plan to prevent people from reaching the UK by intercepting dinghies when they were within 300 metres of the French shore.