Border control is often discussed as if it is paperwork, policy, and numbers. The language is administrative: arrivals, returns, enforcement, deterrence, disruption, operations, agreements, and targets. Those words can make the system sound cleaner than it is.

The reality on the ground can be much harsher. French riot police have reportedly been authorised to use water cannon, CS gas, and batons to stop people and smugglers launching small boats from northern France. The deployment forms part of a UK-France agreement aimed at reducing Channel crossings.

The stated target is people-smuggling. That matters. Smuggling networks exploit danger, charge desperate people large sums, and put lives at risk in overcrowded boats. A serious public debate should not pretend those networks are harmless.

The problem is that enforcement aimed at smugglers can still put asylum seekers and migrants in the path of force. A beach operation is not a neat policy diagram. Families, young men, frightened people, police officers, smugglers, volunteers, and bystanders can all end up inside the same scene.

That is where the language needs testing.

If water cannon, gas, and batons are used in the name of border control, the public should still be allowed to ask what kind of force is being used, against whom, under what rules, and with what risks. Calling something an operation does not remove the human body from it.

The phrase “border security” does a lot of work. It points attention towards the state’s duty to control entry, stop criminal gangs, and prevent dangerous crossings. Those are real concerns. The Channel is dangerous, and the public has a right to expect governments to manage borders lawfully and competently.

Yet the same phrase can also narrow the public imagination. It can make force sound ordinary because it is happening at a border, not in a city square. It can make people easier to dismiss because they are described as a flow, a pressure, a crisis, or a problem to be stopped.

A person hit by water cannon is still a person. A person exposed to gas is still a person. A person pushed away from a boat may still have a legal claim for protection. None of that disappears because the scene is labelled as migration enforcement.

This is the political trick.

Once people are placed inside the category of “border problem,” the level of force used against them can begin to look more acceptable. The question shifts away from what is happening to them and towards whether the operation is effective. The public is invited to judge the policy by crossings reduced, boats stopped, and gangs disrupted, rather than by the full human cost of the method.

Effectiveness matters, but it is not the only test. A state can do something forcefully and still fail morally. It can reduce one visible number while increasing fear, injury, secrecy, or displacement elsewhere. It can push people away from one route without creating a safer route. It can claim control while leaving the basic cause of movement untouched.

The UK also has a particular responsibility here because this is not only a French policing question. The enforcement sits inside a UK-France deal. British politics demands visible action on small boats, and that pressure helps shape what happens on French beaches. The physical force may be used by French officers, but the political demand is partly British.

That distance is useful to politicians. It allows ministers to talk about enforcement results while much of the hardest physical confrontation happens outside Britain’s mainland. The public hears about cooperation, funding, interceptions, and deterrence. The people facing the water cannon are somewhere else.

Distance should not make scrutiny weaker.

A government that funds, encourages, or celebrates tougher enforcement should be willing to explain the practical consequences. It should say how force is limited, how injuries are monitored, how children and vulnerable people are protected, how complaints are investigated, and how the policy avoids simply making desperate people take greater risks.

Without that scrutiny, “border control” becomes a soft phrase for hard treatment.

There is also a danger in treating harshness as proof of seriousness. Politicians often want to show that they are being tough. Toughness is easy to perform when the people affected have little public sympathy and little political power. It is harder to build a system that is lawful, humane, practical, and honest about why people move.

That does not mean every person who attempts the crossing has an automatic right to stay in the UK. It does mean the state’s response must still be judged by law, evidence, and basic human limits.

A country does not prove its seriousness by making frightened people easier to hurt. It proves seriousness by separating criminal exploitation from human need, by creating clear lawful routes where appropriate, by processing claims competently, and by refusing to let cruelty become a substitute for policy.

The important question is not whether borders should exist. That is too crude. The better question is what governments allow themselves to do at the border, and what language they use to make those actions sound acceptable.

When politicians say “stop the boats,” ask what happens before the boat reaches the water. When they say “disrupt the gangs,” ask who else is caught in the disruption. When they say “secure the border,” ask whether security has become a word that hides force from view.

The public should not be asked to choose between smugglers and silence. It is possible to oppose exploitation by criminal networks while also refusing to normalise water cannon, gas, and baton-led deterrence against people who may be seeking safety.

Border control is still state power. It still needs limits. It still needs scrutiny. It still acts on human bodies.

Calling it border control does not make it less violent.

What is fact and what is interpretation

Fact: French riot police have reportedly been authorised to use water cannon, CS gas, and batons in operations to stop small-boat launches from northern France.

Fact: The deployment sits within a UK-France enforcement agreement aimed at reducing Channel crossings and disrupting smuggling networks.

Fact: Rights criticism in France has raised concerns about the use of weapons to stop migrants attempting to cross the Channel.

Fact: The UK-France returns scheme has also faced legal and rights-process concerns, including Reuters reporting on access to translators, legal advice, and information for people removed under the scheme.

Limit: This article does not claim people-smuggling networks are harmless or that states have no right to enforce borders.

Interpretation: Border-control language can make physical force sound administrative and politically acceptable.

TWIS frame: When state force is moved to the border, the public should still ask who is being hurt, who is being protected, and what the language is hiding.

Sources and evidence

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Cite this piece

This Week in Smoke, “Calling It Border Control Does Not Make It Less Violent,” 18 June 2026.