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‘Clandestines' prompt British border blockade in France

National Barrier Asset set to appear across the Channel

Four kilometres of Blighty's National Barrier Asset – a collection of temporary security barriers – has been deployed to Coquelles, the location of the Channel Tunnel terminal in France, to provide additional border security to the UK.

Talking to The Telegraph, James Brokenshire, the Minister for Security and Immigration – a junior position at the Home Office, which comes with a seat on the National Security Council – announced that the UK was deploying the asset following "a surge in the number of 'clandestines' (a concealed illegal immigrant) storming the border".

The NBA is used to protect people and property against attack from vehicle borne improvised explosive devices. Managed and kept by Sussex Police, on behalf of the Home Office, the NBA is available for use by all UK police forces for deployment at security sensitive sites or major events.

The NBA will be set up to protect the perimeter of the lorry terminal in Coquelles, much as it has been used to establish controlled environments for the G20 Summit in 2009, and the London Olympics, as well as a somewhat more permanent fixture outside of the Palace of Westminster.

A strike by French ferry workers has caused traffic jams which have allowed migrants to attempt to smuggle themselves into Britain-bound vehicles, according to the Telegraph, which now reports that the strikers have set tyres alight to even block the Eurostar trains.

The strikers reportedly gained access to the trainlines by cutting through the flaccid fencing; the kind of situation the UK's National Barrier Asset is intended to prevent.

Suggesting that, "on a typical day, 202 illegal immigrants are caught at the port at Calais and the tunnel terminal nearby at Coquelles," the Telegraph then claims that "during the night of Wednesday to Thursday morning last week, more than 650 people were stopped attempting to break through at both ports".

A report into police abuse of asylum seekers in Calais by Human Rights Watch, published in January, claimed that many migrants around Calais had initially intended to apply for asylum in France, but had not done so due to a "lack of accommodation for asylum seekers, as well as police abuse and hostility from some sections of the local population. Some also mentioned the length of the asylum procedure as a deterrent."

The ordinary asylum application procedure in France takes over two years. A current bill before parliament aims to reduce this period to nine months.

A statement by humanitarian NGOs, including Doctors of the World, claims that 3000 exiles are living in standards below what the UNHCR and WHO would consider humane.

The NBA is designed to meet Publicly Available Specification 68, a vehicle security barrier standard set by BSi, which establishes that the fence could withstand a 50mph impact from a 7.5-tonne truck. It is modular and may feature turnstiles for crowd control, which is its primary purpose in Coquelles.

Talking to the BBC, Lee Doddridge, a former adviser for the National Counter-Terrorism Security Office who now runs Covenant, a security consultancy, said "the asset is continually growing," explaining it had trebled in length between its establishment in 2004, and 2008.

The NBA has yet to be deployed in Coquelles, and as traffic jams stretch on in Calais and Kent, the Grauniad is reporting that road hauliers are calling for the French Government to send in the military to break the heat-wave heady strike.®

Bootnote

As per the Home Office's commitment to opacity when working for the public good – and with the public's money – almost all of the information regarding how the manufacture, storage, maintenance, and deployment of the National Barrier Asset is costed (including the names of outsourcing companies) is not shared with journalists or the public under dubious claims about “security”.

The Register notes that in 2009, WikiLeaks published an internal newsletter [PDF] from British Steel successor Corus, now trading as Tata Steel.

The newsletter revealed that Corus had been tipped off by its Home Office and Sussex Police contacts that it was to received a £1m contract to provide “a major expansion” to the NBA in time for the G20 Summit.

Additionally, the Mayor of London's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) has published an April 2015 request [PDF], to the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime requesting approval for a contract to be awarded to “H2S2”, a joint venture between Hardstaff Traffic Barriers and Highway Care, which would pay the companies £5m to store, maintain, and deploy the NBA between 1 May 2015, and 30 April 2019.

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