Britain must take responsibility for the Channel crisis and make itself “less attractive for migrants”, France’s interior minister said on Sunday at an emergency meeting from which Priti Patel was excluded.

Gerald Darmanin and his European counterparts agreed at the meeting to dispatch an EU spy plane to monitor the shores of the English Channel for migrant activity after 27 people died en route to Britain last week. The aircraft will “fly day and night” over the area from France to the Netherlands, Mr Darmanin said.

Earlier on Sunday, Ms Patel had met with the Dutch migration minister Ankie Broekers-Knol and stressed “the need for European partners to work together” through shared intelligence and joint police initiatives, according to her office.

Mr Darmanin said the meeting, to which Ms Patel was disinvited, “was not anti-English. It was pro-European”. “We want to work with our British friends and allies,” he added.

“Britain left Europe, but not the world. We need to work seriously on these questions… without being held hostage by domestic British politics.”

In a joint declaration, France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands vowed to “strengthen their operational cooperation” against people-smuggling gangs, but also to “improve joint cooperation with the United Kingdom”.

Ylva Johansson, the EU’s home affairs commissioner, suggested that Frontex could also deploy its “standing corps” in northern France, as well as the agency’s spy plane, to help tackle the crisis.

She said Frontex’s surveillance operation would better help the EU and France understand how the people-smugglers are helping people leave the bloc for Britain.

The European Commissioner also called for greater cooperation with the UK to end the crisis. She added: “We need to work together with the UK to address this. I think this is an area where we can have an exchange of information on intelligence. We need to have a common approach on how to address these organised criminal groups that are smuggling.”