Footage obtained by GB News shows small boat migrants being handed bottles of water by the French coastguard.The revelation follows more than 70 illegal migrants spotted on the beach at Gravelines today, waiting to board another small boat.FULL STORY HERE.
00:00And just how pivotal Germany is for channel smugglers. Mark, what's going on?
00:04Well, it is really important to this people smuggling phenomenon, key to the route that the smugglers use.
00:13I want to show you, first of all, what's been happening in the channel this morning.
00:16The first video that we can look at actually is on the beach at Graveline.
00:21And look at this, just probably 70 odd waiting to board yet another boat at this beach near Dunkirk.
00:32And they will board a taxi boat. So you can see them running out into the English Channel and they are running out to catch up with that taxi boat that has just come down from one of the local river tributaries.
00:47So they're just standing there in the water. As that boat approaches, they'll get further and closer to the boat.
00:54And a little bit later on in the video as well, something that will infuriate many of our audience without a doubt is the French handing out more life jackets to these migrants on board.
01:07Look at them. They're just that boat is absolutely full to overflowing.
01:12It's in no kind of safe condition to make that channel crossing, but it will do.
01:17It's in shallow water at the moment. There is no attempt by the French to push this boat back, even though we're told the French are there.
01:27There's the boat. Look at them. This is what the French are doing.
01:30They're handing life jackets to the migrants that don't have them.
01:34They're not pushing the boat back onto the beach, even though they can. It's in shallow water.
01:39Now, the reason that Germany is so pivotal to this migrant story is because the boats that are manufactured end up in Germany.
01:49Let's take a look at the next video, video number two, that shows you in sped up mode an individual in Turkey who has just received his boat from a backstreet factory in China.
02:05It's being inflated there while they check it to make sure that there are no leaks and that it is seaworthy.
02:14Take a look at video number three now. This is one of the boats that has been assembled there.
02:23It's got the backboard for the motor to attach to, and that is ready now for transportation to Germany.
02:31And if we take a look at video number four, this is the process in Germany and cities like Essen in Germany.
02:40I think we're still looking for video number four. But you can see this, that boat assembled.
02:45They then get deflated, packed up, and then they're taken from Turkey across via the land borders to Germany.
02:54They're stored in warehouses, backstreet lockups, really, in Germany, in multiple cities there before they make it to France, before they're then transported to France.
03:05Where have you got those videos from, Mark?
03:07From a contact who is constantly communicating with people smugglers.
03:14Some of these are open source. They're put out on TikTok by the smugglers themselves as part of their advertising ploy as they try to entice more and more people to come.
03:26And the reason that Germany is so important to this story is it's not a criminal offence.
03:31It would be in this country and it would be in France, but it's not a criminal offence in Germany to be part of a people smuggling endeavour.
03:41So this is why Germany has finally moved to say it's going to change the law to make it a criminal offence to be involved in people smuggling operations.
03:52But that's not going to come into force until at least the end of this year.
03:57And we've been calling on them to do this for years.
04:00Can Starmer take some credit for that?
04:02Well, you know, Germany was urged to do this under the previous Conservative government.
04:09So, yes, the government pushing Germany to do it can take some credit.
04:14But Germany are being pushed into it, but very, very slowly, as I say.
04:19You know, he's agreeing to it today, but it's not going to come into effect until at least the end of the year when God knows how many migrants will have crossed the English Channel.
