British troops an option for migrant chaos

Migrants flee railway police in Calais after attempting to enter the tunnel. Photo / AP

The migrant chaos in Calais could last all summer, David Cameron warned yesterday, as he refused to rule out sending soldiers to France to hold back the human tide heading for Britain.

The Prime Minister chaired a meeting of the Cabinet's Cobra emergency committee at which he agreed to send more sniffer dogs to Calais and to pay for extra fencing. Critics described the measures as a "sticking plaster".

After a fourth night of disorder at Calais, when the French authorities faced more than 1,000 attempts by migrants to reach the Channel Tunnel, striking French ferry workers added to the misery by burning tyres to block routes to the port.

With the average queuing time for lorries at 18 hours and congestion on Kent's roads hitting locals, trucks will be diverted on to Ministry of Defence land near Folkestone to keep the roads clear.

Mr Cameron called the situation "unacceptable" and said: "This is going to be a difficult issue right across the summer. I will have a team of senior ministers who will be working to deal with it, and we rule nothing out."

Laws, including new powers to tackle illegal working, will be fast-tracked, while Britain and France plan to put on flights to return migrants to their home countries.

The migrants' desperation to get to Britain was typified by photographs of two men clinging to the top of a lorry coming out of the Channel Tunnel at Folkestone.

Richard Burnett, chief executive of the Road Haulage Association, said the measures announced by the Government were "not enough" to tackle the "out-of-control" crisis.

"They are just sticking plasters in terms of trying to resolve this problem."

Jack Straw, the former home and foreign secretary, suggested EU states should consider reintroducing border checks. He said signatories to the Schengen Agreement, which allows people to move freely across borders without passports, were now paying the price for the deal. Britain is not a member of the Schengen zone.

Keith Vaz, the chairman of the home affairs select committee, called on the French authorities to deport migrants attempting to storm the tunnel back to their countries of origin rather than simply releasing them after arrest.

Meanwhile, lorry drivers that do manage to get across the Channel face more delays because lorries are banned from French roads on Saturdays and Sundays throughout August.