Look, we ARE patrolling the beaches: French police monitor coast for migrants ...

Through the grey of early-morning half-light, a dozen dark figures could be seen on the beach. 

Occasionally they ventured into the rolling dunes, and powerful torches lit up the darkness.

As dawn broke yesterday, it became clear that these were French police officers – and that, belatedly, at least some of the northern coast was being closely monitored for migrants leaving for Britain.

In a week when unauthorised seaborne arrivals in Kent from France once again approached 1,000 in one single day, and Home Secretary Priti Patel threatened to cut funding for French Channel policing, the authorities there were finally sparked into action.

It was clearly designed to show people smugglers, and the public, that the French police mean business. 

By all accounts it is too late – and impossible to sustain. 

The Daily Mail saw as many as ten police vehicles in the beach car parks between the resorts of Wimereux and Ambleteuse, 20 miles south-west of Calais.

Most of the police, all with handguns, positioned themselves around the remains of a concrete gun emplacement built by the Nazis in a vain bid to stop the British. 

When the Allied invasion finally came, in 1944, we chose another beach.

People smugglers going the other way yesterday were doing something similar.

The police trained their binoculars on the dunes, where migrants have been inflating dinghies before dashing down to the waves. 

As the sun rose, a 20ft rigid inflatable boat was clear to see.

A group of migrants had made it to the beach, and been disturbed. The police had slashed it, and left it there as a warning.

£200million migrant armada: New fleet of Border Force cutters will patrol Britain's coastline to stop asylum seekers crossing the Channel

By Martin Beckford for the Daily Mail

Priti Patel is to spend £200million on a fleet of border patrol boats as she steps up attempts to stop migrants crossing the Channel.

The Home Secretary has ordered a major replacement of Border Force's five ageing cutters, official documents show.

The vessels could be used to block dinghies from entering UK waters – the controversial 'push-back' tactic announced this week.

The huge sum to upgrade the fleet comes on top of the £54million due to be handed to France for coastal patrols and surveillance – which could now be withheld following a diplomatic spat between Whitehall and Paris.

It comes as migrants continue to make it across the Strait of Dover, with 1,800 arriving along the South Coast this week alone.

Last night, a Home Office spokesman said: 'As part of our ongoing investment into the UK's border security, the planning process for the replacement of Border Force's existing cutter fleet is in its early stages. No final decisions have been made.'

Tony Smith, former director-general of Border Force, said the current boats were in urgent need of replacement as they were originally only designed to be used by customs officers. 'They aren't really equipped to pick up migrants, so I am glad they are doing this,' he added.

'We have to accept that we now have an ongoing maritime threat and Border Force has to adapt.'

Most of the 137ft patrol boats are almost 20 years old. They can reach 26 knots, but are not equipped to detain suspected people smugglers or process asylum claims on board as other countries do.

The cutters are now used almost exclusively in the Channel after the first wave of migrant crossings meant two had to be redeployed from the Mediterranean.

The proposal, from the latest version of the Home Office's procurement schedule, reveals that the process to upgrade the cutters will start in April.

The latest estimate for the cost of the programme is £200million, but it is unclear how many vessels will be built for this sum.

MPs on the Commons home affairs committee warned five years ago that the UK had a 'worryingly low' number of boats to patrol thousands of miles of coast.

The procurement document also shows plans are under way to spend £18million on drones to monitor the Strait of Dover, and £6million on aerial surveillance.

The plans follow a growing row over the record numbers of asylum-seekers making it across the Channel despite huge amounts of British taxpayers' money being handed to France, supposedly to tackle the problem.

Cabinet minister Oliver Dowden said yesterday that the Home Secretary was right to threaten to withhold the £54million promised in July unless French police stop more boats setting sail.

The UK has given £192million to France since 2014, much of it used to toughen security and stop migrants stowing on cross-Channel lorries, ferries and trains.

Mr Dowden, the Culture Secretary, also backed Miss Patel's proposal to get Border Force captains to stop the dinghies getting through, despite claims that it was impractical and unlawful.

He told LBC radio: 'These people are going from a safe country, which is France, to England. So it's right that we try and stop it – mainly because criminal gangs are the beneficiaries.

'The Home Secretary's looked at a huge range of different solutions – we've given extra money to the French border force, we're introducing legislation and one of the things she's looking at doing is turning boats back.

'It's appropriate to look at the full suite of those measures.