00:00go to tarlin in estonia and speak to the former director general of the uk border force tony
00:06smith who has written in the telegraph today just how the french can help to stop the boats he's a
00:12man with a plan and dare you use the phrase tony smith it sounds like another ready plan
00:16it sounds one that's ready to go you reckon you can crack this you've got the technology
00:22you've halted a similar crisis in the early 2000s and the blair regime you think you can
00:27sort this out talk us through it mate well i can't sort it out unless the parties agree
00:33to my plan and unfortunately martin i don't have that power and authority but yeah i mean looking
00:39at saturday's figures you know 1378 attempts and 1194 made it that's a 15 stop rate in france that's
00:46pretty by anyone's estimation we know because you've had patrick christie's over there you've
00:51had mark white over there they're launching from inland waterways around coming into the beaches
00:57now because they're worried about being stopped on the beaches and i'm just saying look there are
01:02loads of ways that we could stop that easily martin if we were allowed to we've got satellite
01:07tracking technology at borders now i'm here in estonia chairing a very conference on international
01:12border management i've got the americans here lots of countries here telling me about they've got
01:17barriers they've got surveillance floating barriers on the rio grande loads of stuff that could be done
01:22naturally by experts in this field but in order to do that you've got a political agreement and
01:28that's what my problem is i don't understand if we're really serious about doing this well then
01:32why don't we deploy these technologies and let's stop these boats before the people even get in them
01:36we could puncture the boats capture the pilots and finish it at a stroke but that requires the
01:41political will of the french and i'm really interested i know what is going on there and what's this latest
01:46missive that they're going to be changing their laws apparently to do something about it or i don't know
01:51but it's 480 million investment over three years as you know martin and i really don't know where
01:56that money's going because if i had to control and compare and control over it and and we could do
02:01some of the things we'd like to do off the french coastline then i think we'd have a really good go
02:06at stopping this tony smith let's be honest what the french are getting up to the gendarmes there they
02:11look like they're on a half a billion pound a year perpetual fag break they stand by and watch
02:16um they're not intervening in water that i keep saying is no deeper than the average bath you
02:22know they're literally standing by taking selfies and doing nothing but some of the ideas you put
02:26in the telegraph today are excellent high-tech surveillance we've got drones you say that can
02:30now tell what someone's having for their sandwiches on the deck of a boat but i tell you what there's
02:36another problem going to be there is gdpr satellite access data our friends in brussels would never allow
02:43us to scan french beaches would they and that's the problem without this joined up thinking it
02:48was was simply um kissing into the wind yeah well martin i've spent my whole life trying to stop
02:54human smuggling it's a terrible business that's why i'm still doing this even now you know i left
02:58the border fast ages ago but i'm still out here with a lot of like-minded people trying to say look
03:02we've got to stop human smuggling if not they're just to stop people drowning regardless of what your
03:06views are on immigration and we can do it i mean technology is keeping up we can get after this
03:11these mechanisms but if you have not got that political will if you haven't got the authorities
03:16from those who control that territory which is the french government and the and the european union
03:21who are prepared to deploy and allow us to deploy to stop these boats which we could do quite easily
03:27operationally then you're right of course we can't do it but to me i just need to understand this is a
03:32political problem martin it's not an operational problem it's not within the gift of the uk border
03:36force we can't go over there we're not allowed but there are things that could be done if the
03:40political will was there in my view and turn you also add to this list yeah this u.s star marine
03:46barriers this of course is in those canals that lead up to the coast there because these craft are
03:52oftentimes launched and not from the beaches themselves but downstream in these canals and
03:56you say that the u.s star blockades could easily work on them and that will stop any of those dinghies
04:02getting anywhere near the sea in the first place of course that takes will from the french at the
04:06moment that's a rare commodity and then pushing the back pushing back the boats to the french side
04:11again these are all common sense ideas but as you say without joint of political thinking is it all a
04:17pipe dream yeah i mean you know i was just struck by patrick's report you know he went he crossed over
04:23a field with a camera crew and saw a boat sitting in the canal there you know i mean like and actually
04:29yeah there is their satellite technology is fantastic these days you're right there's gdpr issues
04:34there's there's going to be lots of people find lots of legal and political reasons why we can't
04:37do this but the technology is there those people are in shallow waters there they have now got craft
04:42that could go right up i mean not even waist deep and and get those people safely off and back to shore
04:47before they set sail on those choppy waters and some of them are going to drown
Comments