Migrant smugglers using BABIES as 'HUMAN SHIELDS' against police in new Channel crossing tactic

Now this story is indeed a shocker. A new reckless and dangerous people smuggling gang tactic has emerged. Gangs are luring migrants with newborn babies on board dinghies with half-priced deals. I'm going to read that again. Gangs are luring, and they don't take much luring by the way, migrants with newborn babies on board dinghies with half-priced deals. You can see the story in the Sun newspaper today, and that horrible picture of that migrant just holding that baby up by the arm like that. It's awful. Babies evidently essentially act as a human shield to prevent the French police from stopping the dinghies. Let's talk to a senior analyst at Onward UK, Joanna Marchong, about this. Joanna, good to see you. Thank you so much for joining me. Joanna, I just find obviously the whole story is shocking, people dying in the channel, and that picture of that poor baby being held up by its arm we saw during the week. This story is that, you know, gangs are using these babies to get more people out of the channel and make more money. I mean, what in the world have we come to? I mean, I think this is as dark as supply and demand really gets, right? These smugglers act as a business, and realistically there's demand for that business, and there's no one stopping supply. It works as an illicit trade market will go, and we're seeing that these babies are basically a pricing strategy that makes their business more profitable, and there's no one cracking down on it. In fact, as we've seen, if there's a baby on board, the French will not intervene in the water, and it actually, you know, having a baby on this dinghy for the smuggler is actually a reduction in the operational cost because you're less likely to be intercepted, and we do see that this is happening in a lot of different ways. So, these smugglers are economizing in every aspect of their business. Last week we saw a story where a massive dinghy carrying over 200 migrants was allowed to get across, and it's saying, if no one's intercepting, if no one is doing anything to crack down on it, well, full steam ahead with the business. Let's economize. Let's make more money, and let's, you know, drive up our output and also our profits. Using the internet without a VPN, a virtual private network, is a bit like taking to the road without car insurance. All it takes is one unlucky moment to cost you a lot of cash. This video's sponsor is Private Internet Access. They are the VPN to help keep you safe. Click the link in the description below to find out why over 30 million people have downloaded PIA to protect themselves online. A virtual private network is an app that hides your IP address and helps keep your data private. When you're browsing the internet at home, you give up a large amount of data to businesses, to shops, and indeed to social media giants too. 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Also there's a 30-day money-back guarantee too. Visit piavpn.com forward slash gbnews to start protecting yourself digitally today. The most shocking line in this whole story to me, Joanna, is one of the parents involved. When he was, this person, the father, was asked whether he worried about the children on the boats, he goes, well I'm kind of worried, yeah. If anything goes wrong, it's bad. With the babies, it's bad. He's talking about his own child. Yeah, I mean, again, even in the story you see that they say, you know, a family, if they've tried over six times and it's their seventh time getting in, you can see that these people are just doing anything in order to come in. They put their health risk and the risk of their family at a lower opportunity cost than it is to actually make the successful crossing. Because, again, if you understand your chances and how people think about this realistically, you say loads of people are going across, we might get intercepted, but they're helping us to safety, no one dies on the crossing, or very few people do because there are laws around that. Well, nothing's stopping us from trying again and again and again, and this is why smash the gangs, that rhetoric and that slogan doesn't actually work, because what we're seeing here is demand, which is inelastic, people try again over and over again, and we have supply, people are supplying them with the methods to come over. So if we, you know, politicians and people thinking about this topic and thinking about ways to sort it out, you have to tackle both of those issues, because if you stop the supply, people will find other routes. I mean, look how many people came through unauthorised routes last year, it was like 44,000 between March last year and March this year. Joanna, it's scary in lots and lots of ways, but the left, in inverted commas, would say, well, this is how desperate these families are. They are fleeing war and persecution and starvation and death and torture. They are so desperate to get to a safe life that they are risking their babies. What would you say to them? I agree that some people are in that scenario, but it's undeniable that you see a lot of people acting out of that framework. They've gone through many safe countries. France in itself is safe. They're seeing that realistically what the problem is in Britain, which is what makes it attractive, is that there are so many incentives to come over. You get the free house, you get benefits, you get temporary accommodation, all the rest of it, and you get assimilated and basically you make the place your own. That is something very unique to Britain. That is not something seen in many European countries. In fact, any. We're the most lenient on all these things and the freebies you get from the state. That is why they are incentivised to come. Otherwise, they would have stayed in the safe country of France. They would have stayed in other safe countries along the passage. I think, of course, there are going to be people in that scenario where they are fleeing a lot of different things, but we have to treat everyone fairly and having this mass of people abusing the system, because that's what it is when they come over and they come over illegally, then it's just unfair to everyone else. Taxpayers in the UK that have to deal with it and ultimately pay the price. Joanna, what also worries me is someone that can be that callous and uncaring about their own child. These are the people we're welcoming into this country. Yeah, I mean, this is what I'm saying. Demand is inelastic. I don't think it's that person saying my child could die as long as I get over. I don't think that's what they're saying. No, but they kind of say with a shrug, well, it's bad for the baby, but... I think realistically, it's them knowing that enforcements and authorities will do anything. Once they see the baby on board, we've got to make sure that baby is okay. And that's what people are trading off of, the fact that people are obviously wanting to save that baby and protect the child. So all the other people on the dinghy will then benefit from that protection. And I think that's why they are very flippant when they say, well, it might be risky, but I think we'll be okay. They probably will be okay because obviously our protection services will do anything they can to make sure baby in the water is safe. Indeed, it's worrying, very sad times. Joanna, thank you so much for joining us today. That's a senior analyst at Onward UK, Joanna Marshong there. Well, I've got a right reply here. A UK border force source says, we are aware of this tactic by the smugglers of using babies as a type of human shield in the boats by offering their parents half the price of a standard crossing. It is more evidence of the callous disregard the smugglers show for people's lives. I've got no words on this one.