A Home Office minister downplayed the diplomatic row between France and the UK over the refugee crisis in the Channel, saying that it was time to draw up new creative solutions. British prime minister Boris Johnson and French president Emmanuel Macron clashed earlier this week over how to deal with people trying to cross the Channel in small boats as they flee war, poverty and persecution.
Damian Hinds, whose brief covers security and borders, told BBC Radio 4 s Today programme: British and French officials have been working together throughout. We have been working together on these really important issues for a long time. The partnership is strong. France was angered by Johnson releasing a letter he sent to Macron in which he set out his proposals, including reiterating a call for joint UK-French patrols by border officials along French beaches to stop boats leaving a proposal that Paris has long resisted.
Johnson also called for talks to begin on a bilateral returns agreement, saying it could have an immediate and significant impact on attempts to cross the Channel after the UK left a European Union returns agreement as a result of Brexit.
Hinds defended the prime minister's letter to the French leader as exceptionally supportive and collaborative. He said nobody is proposing breaching sovereignty due to concerns over the request for UK officials to join patrols on French beaches.
He said that the letter is absolutely acknowledges everything the French government and authorities have done, but that now we have to go further, we have to broaden our partnership, we have to draw up new creative solutions and we have to go further, because of this awful tragedy.
On Sunday, Paris withdrew an invitation to the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, to attend a meeting of ministers from key European allies in Calais.
The No 10 spokesperson said Home Office officials had traveled to France for talks with French counterparts on Friday, despite Patel being disinvited.
The French government spokesman Gabriel Attal rejected the proposal as clearly not what we need to solve the problem and said Johnson's letter doesn't correspond to discussions that the British prime minister and Macron had when they spoke on Wednesday.
He added that Johnson's decision to post his letter on his Twitter feed suggested he was not serious On Friday, as the row between the governments continued, the first of 27 people who died on Wednesday after a vessel capsized in the Channel was named as a young Kurdish woman from northern Iraq.
Relatives identified 24 year old Maryam Nuri Mohamed Amin, known to her family as Baran, as one of the victims on the deadliest day of the Channel migration crisis.
Krmanj Ezzat Dargali posted a tribute to his cousin on social media and told Sky News: The situation is just awful. I understand why so many people are leaving for a better life, but this is not the correct path. It is the route of death. He said that he hoped that the British and French governments would accept us in a better way. He added that anyone who wants to leave their home and travel to Europe has their own reasons and hopes, so please help them in a better way and not force them to take this route of death. While other victims have yet to be identified, relatives in a Kurdish village in Iraq are bracing for the worst. Loved ones in Ranya had been waiting for days for news from loved ones whose phones had gone silent as they attempted the dangerous crossing on Wednesday.