Shocking moment Express reporter and Chris Philp attacked inside Dunkirk migrant camp
Reach Daily Express August 14, 2025 03:39 AM

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp was pelted with glass bottles while visiting a migrant camp in northern France alongside Daily Express reporter Zak Garner-Purkis. Footage of the attack showed the Conservative MP recounting the "pretty shocking" experience of being threatened with a knife inside the Dunkirk camp, before breaking into a run as glass began to shatter around him. "They are throwing bottles at us," the Express' investigations editor said, before Mr Philp can be heard telling him: "Right, we've got to go."

Philp said he had been talking to a masked migrant when someone began "swinging a machete" behind him. "Clearly, he was doing it to send a message - it was a case of 'don't speak'," Zak said, with Mr Philp adding: "To intimidate." The MP said he had been trying to speak to migrants in the camp to "find out more about what's happening on the ground" in France's response to the illegal migration crisis.

Philp told the Express: "It makes me feel frightened for our country. It's like, you see that person that pulled a knife on us and pelted [us] with bottles to be in the UK in just a few days ... put up in a hotel next to your family.

"This was an unsettling experience, but it is important for members of Parliament to actually find out what's going on on the ground.

"I think I'm the first member of Parliament to go into this new 'jungle two', [which] is [how] one of the migrants himself described it.

"I think it's important that democratically elected members of Parliament in the UK are actually willing to take the risk, frankly, to go in there and find out what is happening on the ground instead of listening to the Government's sort of sanitised propaganda."

The number of people trying to cross the Channel from France has been steadily climbing over the last decade, with more than 25,000 people arriving by small boats this year so far, and over 50,000 since Labour came to power last July.

The figures are up 47% on the same point last year and 69% higher than the same period in 2023, according to analysis by the PA news agency.

The Labour Government has pledged to "smash" the criminal gangs that organise channel crossings, including through allocating £100 million towards funding 300 National Crime Agency officers, targeted at stopping people smuggling.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer also secured a "one in, one out" agreement with France, which will see migrants returned to France from the UK, in return for approved asylum seekers brought to Britain via safe passageways.

The Prime Minister described the deal as "the product of months of grown-up diplomacy delivering real results for British people."

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