AMID the sprawling squalor of the New Jungle migrant camp, Iranian Darius Yazdani tells me he is dreaming of a new life in Nottingham.
Some 18 days ago, the bus driver, his wife Laila, 43, and 11-year-old son Ali fled the southern city of Shiraz in their war-battered homeland.
Now, standing on a roadside as a bitter wind churns the nearby English Channel, Darius, 42, insists: “The war is so bad. We had to run.”
Soon, thousands more may follow in his family’s wake — just as Britain’s near half-a-billion-pound deal to fund French beach patrols expires.
Iran — with a population of 93million — has almost five million refugees and displaced people within its borders.
Already an economic basketcase, the continuing conflict may see a mass surge of people escaping the beleaguered nation, where a regime willing to butcher protesters still clings to power.
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The EU Agency for Asylum has warned that “even partial destabilisation” in Iran “could generate refugee movements of an unprecedented magnitude”.
And reports suggest migrants from Iraq, Turkey and Syria plan to claim they are Iranian on arriving in the UK in the belief it will aid their asylum applications.
‘Migrants pouring out’
An Iraqi Kurd named Ahmade recently told a journalist from The Times: “I am Iraqi but my case is Iranian.”
The EU’s dire warning of a possible Iranian refugee crisis comes as Britain and France continue to haggle over the renewal of the three-year £475million deal to police the Channel coast, which runs out this week.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is said to be pushing for the new funding to be performance-related, with cash handouts depending on the proportion of small boats stopped by the French.
Little wonder, for the thin blue line on the Calais beaches has been sieve-like.
Last year the French intercepted only 35 per cent of all attempted crossings — down from a peak of just over 50 per cent in the weeks after the last deal was signed in March 2023.
This year the figure has been 37 per cent.
Tony Smith, a former Director General of Border Force, told me: “If we don’t have some kind of an agreement, there’s a risk that migrant numbers will go up quite drastically.
“Britain’s Border Force can’t do anything on French beaches. Without a deal, there will not be any deterrent.
“You’re going to get migrants pouring out of the camps straight into the dinghies, and no one’s going to make any attempt to stop them at all.”
The French are playing hardball and pushing for extra millions as part of a new package, citing “escalating costs”.
A senior Interior Ministry source based in Calais told The Sun: “Everything is being done to stop the boats but costs are escalating all the time. This is the reality.
“We are putting all the work in, protecting British interests, and we need British money to do this.”
Asked about any performance- related deal, the official replied: “Yes, but only if it is a fair one.
“Stopping all boats along such a wide stretch of coast is an impossibility.” Callously ingenious, traffickers have been targeting Belgian beaches as dinghy launch sites in recent weeks to blindside law enforcement.
On March 21, French authorities rescued 78 migrants from one of the flimsy vessels which had set off from Belgium before its engine failed.
The inflatables are also being launched from as far south as Dieppe in France — 125 miles away from the usual embarkation points around Dunkirk.
British taxpayers shell out nearly two-thirds of the £250million annual cost of the police beach patrols in northern France.
The Sun was this week told that a single mobile French police unit of 70 costs almost £10,000 a day in basic charges.
This includes £4,000 for lodging in local hotels, £4,000 in insurance, £400 in overtime, £600 on food and £500 in petrol.
Violent confrontations on French beaches are increasing, with police suffering attacks by migrants and smugglers — something that has pushed insurance premiums sky high.
‘Get-tough’ pledge
France has also expanded its own naval forces with six new patrol boats that can rescue migrants and intercept boats.
Yet a ‘get-tough’ pledge by the French to intercept smugglers’ dinghies on the water — following British pressure — has so far yielded just one conviction.
An 18-year-old Iranian was jailed last month after being caught steering a dinghy towards the English Channel on the Aa canal, which runs through Gravelines, near Dunkirk.
The gendarmes’ rules of engagement will only allow them to intervene to stop the so-called taxi-boats before they take migrants on board.
Yet smugglers are now sailing dinghies out to sea from rivers or canals and then picking up their passengers, who wade through the waves to meet the inflatable.
French authorities are worried that if they stop the dinghies at sea, lives could be lost, leaving officers at risk of prosecution.
Wall is £700k UK symbol
CUTTING a grey scar through the French countryside, the massive concrete wall looms over the New Jungle migrant camp, courtesy of British taxpayers.
At 10ft by 2ft and running for around a mile, the Great Wall of Loon-Plage divides the ramshackle camp – a nerve centre for people smugglers – from a railway line.
Costing 800,000 euros (almost £700,000), it stands as a symbol for the UK millions that have been dished out here on the Channel coast as Britain struggles to control its borders.
Citing local government sources, a French TV report said the wall was built to protect migrants from being injured after wandering on to the freight line.
While a French police officer at the camp told The Sun: “The migrants had been throwing objects at the trains. The drivers were worried.”
UK Government sources insist the purpose of the giant wall is to restrict migrants being able to reach nearby beaches to catch dinghies to Britain.
If so, it’s likely to prove a costly failure.
Not only can migrants cross through the wall and railway line at a level crossing beside the camp, but they can simply stroll from their tents on to an adjacent dual carriageway and take a bus to the Channel.
Local resident Dany Blanckaert was furious when the giant wall went up outside two homes he owns.
“Loon-Plage used to be a place where we could invest and live peacefully,” he said in December.
“Now, we feel like we’re in prison.”
Blocks in the section of the barrier near Dany’s home were later removed.
The price tag for the wall emerged as Britain haggles with France to renew the three-year £475million deal to police the beaches here.
A National Police source told The Sun: “Meetings between lawyers and police chiefs have taken place, but the judicial authorities remain firm — there will be no waiving of criminal liability if things go wrong.”
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp told me: “The Government should tell the French that they’re not getting any more money until they start intercepting the boats close to their shore — as they promised they would, but in practice, haven’t done.”
Despite the array of law enforcement pitted against them, migrants in the fetid camp at Loon-Plage remain determined to reach the UK.
A rickety market stall in the chaotic camp is even selling life jackets at £13 a piece.
Afghani Noorullah Noori, 24, told how smugglers are quoting between around £780 and £1,100 for a place on a dinghy, “depending on how quickly you want to go”.
The ex-teacher — who has diplomas in law and IT — says: “I want to go to the UK for a better life.
“Day by day, the economy is getting worse in Afghanistan. There are no jobs. I am worried about taking the boat across the water. I can’t swim.”
‘I have no choice’
Almost 1,000 people made it to the UK on 16 boats in a six-day period beginning on March 18.
Just under 4,500 migrants have arrived on British shores by dinghy so far this year.
Now, with the coastline battered by high winds and choppy waves, migrants are hunkering down under canvas amid marshy scrubland which doubles as an open-air latrine.
Lying amid the detritus of rotting food, plastic bottles and discarded clothing are two dead rats, just a few feet from where people are sleeping in leaky tents.
In this inhospitable and dispiriting place, most migrants are single men.
However, I encounter four young Vietnamese women and a West African mother with a baby strapped to her back.
Ethiopian teacher and translator Temesgen, 32, is trying to keep warm in his sodden tent.
Saying he is fleeing political oppression in his homeland, he nods towards Dover and insists: “I have no choice but to get the boat.
“The government in Ethiopia chased me out.
The UK is a small country. It can’t accept everyone. But people have to understand our situation.
Ethiopian teacher and translator Temesgen
“I’m suffering, but the police here have been good to me and British volunteers have given me food and clothes.”
Temesgen — who speaks good English — is aware that many people in the UK want to stop migrants from making the crossing.
He admits: “The UK is a small country. It can’t accept everyone. But people have to understand our situation.
“We love our country but we can’t live there in peace.”
UK Government sources have said they will not provide a “running commentary” on negotiations for a new policing deal.
The Home Office pointed out that working alongside the French, “over 40,000 crossing attempts” have been thwarted since Labour took office.
And it highlighted the one-in, one-out deal with France which means “illegal migrants who arrive on small boats are being sent straight back”.
Yet, only around two per cent of more than 20,000 arrivals have been deported since the deal was signed by both nations in August.
The most common nationality among asylum seekers in the past ten years has been Iranian.
Emerging from his battered tent as a hail storm blows, a 34-year-old Iranian decorator, who fled capital Tehran in February, is unfazed by the deportation threats.
Tired but resolute, he says: “I will take the boat.
“More people from my country will follow me here.”
As the Anglo-French wrangling continues over a fresh policing deal, it remains to be seen what sort of reception party will be waiting for them on the beaches.