ABSTRACT

This chapter, in tracing the shifts in British policy from disengagement to reluctant and caveated intervention in successive crises in Calais since the mid-1990s, highlights the lack of a sustained policy towards refugees. Britain has devolved responsibility for the migrants to the French and liability for bringing illegal bodies into Britain to the port, tunnel and haulage companies. It is only after a high-profile campaign waged via the media by companies highlighted porous borders around Calais that successive governments, sensitive to public concerns over immigration, have felt compelled to become engaged, if only to dispute accusations of police failure. Their interventions since 2000 have prioritized security and flows of trade, a stance increasingly criticized as a betrayal of the British ‘tradition of humanitarianism’. However, Britain’s qualified engagement with the Calais crises was consistent with its rationale for entering the European Community in the 1970s. Government action, or inaction, rather than being at odds with a distinctive British tradition of humanitarianism accentuated centuries’ old contradictions in it.