The migrant camp at Calais is a “stain on the French state”, a senior Labour MP warned today.
Shadow human rights minister Andy Slaughter also criticised the British Government for failing to do more for the thousands of refugees and economic migrants at the rambling “jungle” camp in northern France.
“This is not in truth a refugee camp, so much does it lack the basics of life,” the Hammersmith MP was due to tell a Commons debate on the crisis.
“It is a stain on the French state, but it is not a problem of which we can wash our hands.”
Most of the volunteers offering support to people in the camp were from the UK, he was set to say. “That is to our country’s credit.”
“Our Government has contributed nothing but the money to build a razor-wire fence between the camp and the Eurotunnel entrance. That is to their shame.”
Up to 6,000 migrants are living at the camp and many of them make regular attempts to get into Britain by sneaking through the Channel Tunnel or clambering onto lorries or trains.
Ministers have come under fire after it emerged that Britain granted asylum to a Sudanese man who walked the 31 miles through the Channel Tunnel to England.
