'Close Sangatte or we send them back'

Downing Street has drawn up plans to send thousands of asylum seekers back across the Channel if France refuses to shut the Sangatte refugee camp.

The "refuse and return" policy is the most radical threat under consideration by ministers as the two countries prepare for negotiations on the future of the controversial Red Cross centre, home to 1,300 migrants who want to reach Britain.

Talks will begin after next month's French parliamentary election. France said yesterday that it wanted to shut the camp once it found an alternative way of dealing with its residents.

Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith today warned Tony Blair not to allow any of the Sangatte refugees to enter Britain as part of a deal with France to secure the camp's closure.

The idea of sending refugees back to France emerged in a leaked No10 "options paper" exploring ways in which Britain could toughen its asylum policy. The document said the two nations should consider a "joint removals effort" to return refugees to their countries of origin.

Other proposals include sending Royal Navy ships to patrol the Mediterranean for migrants and using RAF transport plans for mass deportations. A No10 aide drafted the document, which has been discussed by ministers.

In a separate development, the Home Office was reported to be studying plans to let broadcasters film the deportation of asylum seekers whose applications had been rejected. The aim would be to reassure the British public that firm action is being taken, and to deter economic migrants from seeking to come to the UK.

In the first Cabinet revolt against the new hardline stance, International Development Secretary Clare Short last night rejected the idea of cutting aid to countries who refuse to accept deported migrants.

She told BBC TV's Question Time: " People say things like that without thinking. It's not thought through and it's not sensible. Some clever little person wrote a paper with lots of ideas, and some of the ideas are not good."

French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy last night visited Sangatte and said its closure was "an objective but not a precondition". He said: "A lot of things need to be sorted out first. There is a problem downstream, that's England, and a problem upstream which allows illegal immigrants through before arriving on our territory."

Mr Duncan Smith's warning on asylum seekers today marked a return to the hardline stance taken by his predecessor William Hague, after months in which the Tories have tried to adopt a new image as the party of the "vulnerable". However, shadow chancellor Michael Howard, who is MP for Folkestone, said today: "If you are talking about the vulnerable, my constituents are feeling pretty vulnerable at the moment."

Mr Howard denied that the Tories, when in power, had worsened the problem by signing up to the EU's Dublin Convention.

He said that in 1990, when the Convention was signed, the asylum seekers issue was on a much smaller scale. He said the Government now still could and should revive the agreement with France that those denied asylum here could be sent back.

In an article for the Daily Mail, Mr Duncan Smith accused ministers of "waving the white flag" by considering accepting Sangatte asylum seekers in return for the closure of the site.

"France is poised to close its largest refugee camp while we are set to build three new accommodation centres in the heart of the British countryside. The French government is easing the concerns of its voters while our government is merely adding to our anxieties."

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