‘We will not be blackmailed’: MEP demands May fight Macron on migrants & money (VIDEO)
French President Emmanuel Macron should be scrambling for ways to ensure a free trade deal with Britain instead of attempting to blackmail the UK into coming up with a deal for migrants and demanding money, an MEP says.
In an interview with RT, Janice Atkinson MEP blasted Macron, who is rumored to be coming up with a plan to back his UK counterpart, Theresa May into a corner.
Macron will offer the UK support for a free trade deal when Britain breaks from the EU – if the UK takes illegal migrants from France and pays to bolster border security at the UK border in northern France.
May, however, is being urged not to break under the pressure from France – a nation which “needs” a trade deal with Britain – at the Anglo-French summit at Sandhurst on Thursday.
Atkinson, who switched from UKIP to Europe of Nations and Freedoms (ENF) group, said German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Macron should not be able to bully the UK.
“May should be saying to President Macron that there is no deal about Calais, we will not be taking a single migrant,” Atkinson said.
“Eighty percent of those fit, young men that have been camping over the Calais jungle have traipsed through the Schengen area, the open border system and they have marched through to Calais, and they have not been stopped by successive governments in France, including Mr. Macron.
“We will not be blackmailed by Mr. Macron – and by his mate Mutti Merkel – you need a free trade deal with us so don’t try and blackmail us that we can’t have a free trade deal with you. If you want one that’s fine, but we’re not taking a single migrant. And all those migrants, and they talk about child migrants as well, those child migrants have been people-trafficked by their families who have paid an awful lot of money to get them to Calais.”
The MEP who claims to have visited Calais migrant hotspots “the most” of all EU politicians, said she has met with “economic” migrants there – not refugees – who should be deported.
Atkinson also claimed the UK should be tougher on migrants.
“I would suggest now Syria and Afghanistan is safe, we reprocess those children and we send them back to their families,” she said.
“You can do that Mr. Macron, because under French law they have committed crimes, night after night they are trying to break into lorries, ferries and the Channel tunnel to get into my country, so therefore they’ve committed a crime, so you can arrest and deport. That’s my message to Mr. Macron.
“You’re telling us we can’t have an a la carte deal, a free trade deal with the European Union, what I’m saying to you is migrants can’t have an a la carte deal to pick and choose the countries that they want to live in either.”
Atkinson said what “should be” discussed between the leaders is a nuclear deal with Iran, and “the mutual benefits of trade.”
She also suggested Macron gives May tips on diplomacy so the UK can “roll out the red carpet” for US President Donald Trump.
However, Atkinson said Macron is an avid Europhile who wants a “United states of Europe.”
“Until he can control his own borders, and abandon Schengen he isn’t serious about immigration,” she said.
