What was meant to be a fact-finding trip turned into a tense and even dangerous moment for Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp.
While visiting a migrant camp near Dunkirk, the Conservative MP says he had a curved machete pulled on him and was later pelted with glass bottles.
The incident happened during an overnight trip to northern France, where he was investigating illegal migration routes.
From Beach Patrol to Bottle Attack
Philp, who represents Croydon South, arrived in Dunkirk to speak with police, aid workers, and locals.
He said he noticed something troubling — a lack of French police presence on the beaches where small boats often set off for the UK.
Posting to X early in the morning, he wrote: “5am and I’m walking along the beach which has seen many illegal migrant boat launches — including yesterday.
I can’t see any French police here either — why aren’t they patrolling this launching point? It’s negligent.”
Face-to-Face with a Machete
Speaking to GB News about the dramatic incident, Philp explained that just minutes after chatting with a group of migrants, another man suddenly pulled out a curved machete and began waving it around. “At that point,” he said, “we left pretty quickly.”
Things only got worse as they were leaving, with glass bottles hurled at them — and more thrown at their car as they drove away.
Dunkirk’s ‘Jungle 2’
The camp Philp visited is being referred to as ‘Jungle 2,’ a reference to the infamous ‘Jungle’ in Calais that was dismantled in 2016.
The Dunkirk site has grown to a size that rivals its predecessor, becoming a major staging ground for Channel crossings.
Record-Breaking Dinghy Crossing
Philp’s visit came just hours after a record number of migrants — 107 in a single inflatable — made it to Britain in one crossing.
Photos from Dover showed that smugglers are now using a new, much longer type of dinghy. Far from the “small boats” often mentioned, this vessel was so large it is now being examined by Border Force and other authorities.
Pressure on Labour’s Migration Policy
The arrival of the bigger boats is raising questions about Labour’s approach to tackling illegal migration.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government scrapped the Conservative Rwanda asylum scheme — designed to deter crossings by sending migrants to claim asylum in Rwanda instead — as one of its first major decisions.
Numbers Continue to Climb
With 474 Channel arrivals recorded on Monday alone, the total number of migrants reaching the UK since Labour’s election victory has now topped 50,000.
For Philp, the machete incident has become another symbol of what he sees as a crisis — and proof, he argues, that more needs to be done both in France and at the UK border.