Thread by @Care4Calais

Today's tragedy in the English Channel raises serious questions about what can be done to prevent more similar deaths. We need to understand what happened, and why: a 🧵

Sometime before 3am this morning, somewhere out on the black, freezing-cold waters of the English Channel, a light dinghy carrying around 50 men, women and children began to sink. Losing air, one side had buckled and, with water coming in, the soft base was sinking into the sea.

People were screaming for help. It is possible that some had already fallen into the sea.

At around 3am, people on the boat saw the lights of a fishing boat approach them and pull alongside. From above, the crew threw down ropes and, one by one, hauled them to safety.

Other rescue boats began to arrive, and overhead, coastguard helicopters arrived to illuminate the horrific scene with seachlights.

The fear and panic are unimaginable.

So too is the cold, although it is believed the waters were freezing and it was the worst night of a cold spell that's seen the UK's lowest temperatures for 12 years.

According to reports, at least four people died.

Forty three people were pulled from the boat alive and taken to hospital, where some are said to be seriously ill.

That this should happen on our border at all, let alone just over a year since 32 lives were lost in a similar incident, is a horror beyond words; we simply cannot express the shock and sadness we feel for the victims and their families.

Perhaps, though, if we feel there is little we can say, we might ask instead if there is something we could do. Some action we could take that might stop this happening again.

There is.

Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, laid the blame for these deaths at the feet of people smugglers, but it is the policies of her government that create the conditions for people smugglers to thrive.

The total lack of safe and legal routes creates the smugglers' business model; increased security merely drives up their profits.

So it is entirely within the Government's power to prevent further deaths.

If refugees in Calais were given safe passage to the UK, people smugglers would be out of business overnight. More importantly, no more innocents would die.

For this reason I lay the blame squarely on the government for failing to act to provide safe routes.

Last night, when the fishermen saw the people in trouble, they went to help. It was the instinctive reaction of most human beings when they see people in desperate need.

They didn't stop to ask who they were, or where they were from, or why they were coming; they saw lives were at risk, and they did what they could to save them.

It is from instincts such as this that our laws should spring.

In the name of all those who have died, been hurt or known terror on Britain's borders, it is now imperative that we apply these principles to refugees in the English Channel.

If not now, then when?

#SafePassage now