Source: The Observer (17 April 05)
Authors: Mark Townsend and Gaby Hinsliff
The pictures in last week's Daily Mail showed huge queues of asylum seekers in Calais waiting to come to Britain. But when The Observer arrived in exactly the same place last Friday, the square was eerily silent. What is the truth about Britain's 'out of control' borders?
There was a lone jogger, then a mother dragging her two screaming children. Five minutes passed before a British couple ambled by, lugging crates of lager. But that was about it. The sweeping square bordering the verdant Parc Richelieu in Calais was remarkably quiet on Friday. Where had all the asylum seekers gone? After all, photographs taken at precisely the same location had appeared 24 hours earlier offering a quite dissimilar scene. In them, a queue of immigrants 'destined for England' had been pictured snaking alongside the entire length of the park's neat flower beds.
That they were published last Thursday was no coincidence; the general election campaign had again been ambushed by the furore over immigration following the revelation that Stephen Oake, a Manchester police officer had been stabbed to death by an al-Qaeda suspect and failed asylum seeker Kamel Bourgass.
Now, evidence had supposedly emerged that Britain's borders were 'under siege'. Labour's pledge to get tough on asylum was looking increasingly threadbare. The Daily Mail, which published the picture, said it revealed that there was an 'open door' to the UK and that 'hundreds' of young men would be 'hoping to reach the shores of England' in 'the next few days'.
It was incendiary stuff. Immigration was out of control. Borders were porous. Britain was in danger of being swamped yet again. Within hours of these images appearing the Conservative leader, Michael Howard, had condemned the 'chaos' in the asylum system. The man masterminding Labour's election strategy, Alan Milburn, apologised for the killing of the policeman Stephen Oakeby a failed asylum seeker, while the Prime Minister conceded that there had been failings in the system.
Yet when The Observer ventured to Calais, long portrayed as Britain's front line in the battle over asylum and immigration, a very different picture emerged.
To read the full article, go to Truth about Calais 'immigrant menace'
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