The U.K. and France Need to Collaborate, and Not Just on Migration

It’s now been two weeks since a group of 27 migrants died trying to reach the U.K. from France when their boat sank in the English Channel. Far from uniting to confront a shared crisis, both countries have spent the interim shifting blame, trading insults and ignoring needed reforms. If the next tragedy is to be prevented, sanity needs to quickly prevail.

Following the deaths on Nov. 24, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson sent French President Emmanuel Macron a letter — with further commentary on Twitter — declaring, among other things, that migrants reaching the U.K. from France were France’s responsibility and should be swiftly taken back. Macron took offense at both style and substance, and withdrew an invitation to a British official to join talks on the issue. French ministers then declared migration “first and foremost an English issue” and accused Britain of tolerating “quasi-modern slavery.”