Belgium demands UK helps tighten security at major port amid surge in migrants trying to cross Channel

BELGIUM has demanded extra help from Britain to shore up its border controls amid a surge in migrants trying to smuggle themselves cross the Channel.

Immigration minister Theo Francken wants the UK to strike a new treaty with his country to tighten up security at the major port of Zeebrugge.

In an interview with The Sun he said Britain's loose ID controls and booming black market are proving a major pull factor for illegal migrants. Mr Francken met with Home Secretary Sajid Javid in London yesterday to discuss the growing problem.

He revealed many failed asylum seekers who have been denied the right to stay in Germany are now living rough in Belgium while they try to get to Britain.

In particular smuggling gangs are targeting the country's biggest cargo port Zeebrugge, which runs major routes to Hull and Teesport.

Mr Francken, an immigration hardliner from the nationalist New Flemish Alliance, now wants the UK to offer similar help as it does to Calais.

He said: "We have a lot of failed asylum seekers trying to go to the UK for the moment. Certainly from Germany, so they arrived in 2015-2016.

"Mostly they're from Iraq and now they're saying we don't want to return, let's try to go to the UK. We hope to have an agreement because we're really demanding the UK do more for the border protection of Zeebrugge port.

"We need a UK-Belgium bilateral as soon as possible because the problem is really increasing and the Brits have to help us out."

Mr Francken said the pull factor of Britain was a "common problem, not only a Belgian one" and was fuelled by our huge black market exploiting migrants.

He said: "They all want to go to your country because you don't have identity cards, your black market is very lucrative, you have a lot of English speaking migrants already from those communities.

"It's a real big push factor your country, the British way of life. I like a lot the Brits but now they need to help us and they said they will do that, but we need a concrete arrangement."

The Belgian minister, who is championing a tough Australian-style immigration system to secure Europe's outer borders, also warned Brexit won't help reduce the flow.

He said: "They will not stop because you're out of the EU, the EU has nothing to do with this. It's just because they like Britain because it's a beautiful country."

The existing bilateral Le Touquet agreement allows British immigration officials to carry out border checks in northern France.

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