On the Belgian coast during two world wars, thousands of British soldiers lost their lives. In Coxyde Military Cemetery, more than 1,500 valiant souls are laid to rest.
Men like Gunner A W Loney, of the Royal Field Artillery, who was 20 when he died at Passchendaele. Next to his grave lies that of a 19-year-old soldier killed in the relentless shelling and sniping around Ypres. These men made the ultimate sacrifice to protect our borders.
Today, standing amid the rows of white gravestones as the spring sunshine lights up the names engraved on them, it is hard not to wonder what they would have made of the invasion that is under way today.
Across the road from the cemetery is an accommodation centre for illegal immigrants. Sooner or later, some will be heading to the UK. Belgium is the new front in Britain’s losing battle against migrants. In recent weeks, more than 20 small boats have left the beaches of West Flanders for the UK.
In previous years, there were no more than two departures. Alarmingly, this is just the start of the crossings season: the people-smuggling gangs Sir Keir Starmer promised to “smash” seem to be scaling up their operations.
In the early hours last Saturday, we watched as two dinghies set off from Nieuwpoort packed with asylum seekers. Standing in the dunes, in the pitch dark, we heard police sirens and saw officers descend on the scene. We watched them patrol the beach while a spotter plane circled overhead.
In a routine perfected by the French, they did not try to stop the boats. Less hostile towards the British media than France’s gendarmes (who actively obstruct reporters), the Belgian authorities are at least open about the new crisis they face.
Carl Decaluwe, the regional governor, said: “It appears to be a new tactic by people smugglers, sending as many boats as possible into the North Sea at once.”
As the dinghies disappeared into the distance, they were shadowed by a Belgian law-enforcement vessel. Emergency services had been alerted to 200 migrants in four boats drifting off the coast.
According to local authorities, they were escorted from Belgium to French waters. From there, the French will have taken them to the midway line in the Channel, to be picked up by the UK Border Force. It is an extraordinary new pattern in the small-boats crisis. What on earth are the French doing, aiding and abetting illegality from Belgium – and making us pay?
Back on the beach, as the dinghies disappeared past the point of no return, the Belgian police picked up pairs of trainers, flip-flops and other belongings discarded by migrants as they rushed into the sea. As dawn broke and a flat tide went out on another calm day, tiny waves rippled over a mound of abandoned bags and clothes.
Perhaps word had spread that, on arrival in the UK, the passengers would not need these things. After all, almost everything is provided by the British taxpayer.
A Home Office spokesman said: “We are aware of dangerous and illegal small boat launches from Belgium. Through continued shared intelligence and close partnerships with Belgian authorities, numerous others have been successfully prevented to prevent illegal arrivals to the UK.
“Our work with France has already prevented over 42,000 crossing attempts under this government, and we have also removed or deported almost 60,000 people who were here illegally. We are also removing the incentives that draw illegal migrants to this country and increase removals and deportations of those with no right to be here.”
In addition to three meals a day, they can expect free toiletries, free healthcare, free legal advice – even free entertainment. Plus, there’s a cash allowance of £49 a week. It’s far more than they get in Belgium, where the standard hand-out is €9 a week (about £8).
In stark contrast to the three and four-star hotels in which many asylum seekers are accommodated in the UK, in Belgium, asylum seekers live in very basic conditions. The rudimentary toilets, shower rooms and eight-to-a-room dormitories at the facility near the war graves in Koksijde are more spartan than those in many British prisons.
Invited inside by a group of young men from Syria, Palestine and Afghanistan, we were able to look around. The lads sleep cheek by jowl on camp beds separated by curtains.
The Telegraph was able to see – and smell – the conditions in a dormitory shared by eight men in Koksijde, Belgium
Each cubicle has a couple of hooks for clothes and a camping-style side table, and that’s about it. Toilet paper is clearly not taken for granted: some men keep a roll on their bedposts. Space is so tight that shoes are lined up on windowsills in communal areas. For every 50 men, there are around seven or eight toilets. Unsurprisingly, there’s a terrible stench.
Some of the men stay in these claustrophobic conditions for more than two years awaiting a decision on asylum applications, only to receive what they call “a negative”. Next stop for many of these rejects? The UK.
Koksijde is a former barracks, soon to return to military use. (Locals say it will become a drone training centre.) In the rudimentary refectory, migrants eat at plastic tables – sloppy rice and some kind of vegetable ratatouille on the day we visited. It’s a far cry from the tasty menus and unlimited snacks UK asylum seekers receive.
Belgian police and firefighters search for migrants after a failed attempt to cross to Britain – Getty
Beyond the canteen, a few strings of brightly coloured bunting add a sliver of cheer to a utilitarian common room. Creature comfort wise, there’s not much: just simple tea and coffee-making facilities, a microwave with no plug and some plastic seats. Outside, on a scrubby patch of grass, teenagers loiter around a makeshift volleyball net.
Unlike the northern French coast, which has been ravaged by the migrant crisis, the towns and beaches of Flanders seem largely untouched by the new arrivals. For now, the roads are not strewn with stinking piles of filthy nappies, discarded food wrappers, plastic bottles and other detritus linked to the sprawling migrant camps of Dunkirk.
During a two-week investigation in that lawless part of France last year, we frequently heard the sound of automatic weapons being fired. Living undercover in the camp, we ran the gauntlet of gangmasters who controlled the trade in dinghy departures with intimidation and death threats.
Inflatable craft used by migrants to cross the channel at a storage facility in Dover – Dan Kitwood/Getty
That horror has yet to arrive in Belgium, where pretty coastal towns are still beautifully kept.
The growing numbers of downtrodden sub-Saharan Africans, Middle Easterns and other foreign nationals waiting to wade into the sea for small boats bound for Britain do not roam the streets openly as they do across the border in Dunkirk and Calais.
Mercifully for the Belgians, the army of well-meaning but misguided NGOs and charities that cater to penniless asylum seekers in the Calais Jungle, propping up the whole racket, has yet to set up shop in Flanders. But for how long?
Doubtless the French authorities will spin the new Belgian front as a mark of their success. Stand by for claims that the people smugglers have been “forced to develop new routes” because the gendarmes are getting better at intercepting them.
That’s not borne out by statistics, which show a higher number of crossings than ever (nor by the latest photographs of the gendarmes smiling and pointing as dinghies depart from under their noses). What seems much more likely is that the whole operation is expanding.
“Be careful – it’s dangerous,” warn Belgian officers on the beach as we continue our investigation. We say we have heard AK-47 assault rifles being fired in Dunkirk. “We have had similar reports,” they reply.
To date, almost 200,000 undocumented young males of fighting age, and with unknown intentions, have been allowed to enter the UK in this way.
In Flanders fields, where poppies blow, those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom, in two world wars, must be turning in their graves.