'The gangs are laughing at us': Channel migrants board 'custom-made' small boat in colours of the Kurdish flag, as Belgian police stand and watch

Migrants are heading to Britain on a ‘custom-made’ small boat in the colours of the Kurdish flag, in an apparent reference to the gangs which dominate Channel trafficking.More than 20 men were filmed aboard the dinghy off a Belgian beach early this morning, watched by police.Rather than the usual black PVC plastic, the boat was made in distinctive colours matching the red, white and green ‘fesses’, or horizontal stripes, and yellow sunburst emblem of the Kurdish flag, adopted in 1946.The departure took place at 3am local time from a beach near the border with France.One witness said: ‘This boat is just floating about five metres off [the beach] and the Belgian police are doing nothing.‘How crazy is this?‘The police could come and slash this boat easily to stop it.’Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: 'Far from smashing the gangs as Labour promised, the Kurdish people smugglers are now openly laughing in the Government’s faces with an illegal immigrant boat decked in their national colours. The migrant dinghy, pictured off the Belgian coast early on Thursday morning, was in the distinctive colours of the Kurdish flag The dinghy's unusual colours appeared to be inspired by the Kurdish flag, pictured'The coming days are the calm sea for a fortnight or so, and hundreds of illegal immigrants are set to flock across the Channel.'The Government’s returns deal with France has collapsed and the authorities the other side of the Channel are standing by as illegal immigrants and people smugglers run amok and launch ever larger boats.'Shabana Mahmood has failed.'He added: 'The only solution is the Conservative borders plan - leave the European Convention on Human Rights so we can deport all illegal immigrants upon arrival. Then the crossings will stop.'Reform UK leader Nigel Farage tweeted: ‘The Belgian authorities, like the French, are just standing and watching.‘This boat is even custom-made to match the Kurdish flag.‘The gangs are laughing at us.’It is not yet known whether the dinghy successfully crossed the Channel.But a Border Force vessel, BSC Courageous, was operating in the strait east of Calais. About 20 migrants boarded the vessel at De Panne beach on the Belgian coast, near to the French border at about 3am local time on Thursday Migrants struggled to get the apparently custom-made dinghy underway Footage showed Belgian officials standing on the beach a few feet from the dinghy as migrants struggled to get underwayEarlier this month the National Crime Agency (NCA) director general of operations Rob Jones told MPs that Iraqi Kurds were ‘over-represented’ in illegal people-trafficking outfits.In an evidence session before the home affairs select committee, chair Dame Karen Bradley asked him: ‘You must know who the gangs are, where they are from and what work is being done to tackle them? Is there work being done diplomatically with their source countries?’Mr Jones replied: ‘Yes, there is. We have talked before about the overrepresentation of Iraqi Kurds and Afghans in this.’In 2024 the NCA said 18 members of a people-smuggling gang – mostly Iraqi Kurds – who were jailed in France were ‘among the most prolific’ they had come across.Prosecutors described the traffickers as ‘merchants of death’ and the gang was thought to have been behind as many as 10,000 Channel crossings.Ringleader Mirkhan Rasoul, 26, was jailed for 15 years in Lille after a Europe-wide police operation.The other defendants included one woman, and an Iranian man who was arrested in the UK and subsequently extradited to France.Officials said that for several years the gang had controlled most of the small boat crossings from northern France.If a migrant boat reaches British soil today it will be the first arrival since October 7 after a period of rough weather in the Channel.Since Labour came to power 85,649 small boat migrants have reached the UK, including 8,466 since Andy Burnham seized power in an internal Labour party coup in July.