After years of repeated failures, the UK government is once again trying to look busy on the border. UK prime minister Keir Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macron are currently in talks to secure a “one in, one out” migrant deal. Under this arrangement, Britain would send back Channel migrants to France within weeks of their arrival. In return, the UK would take asylum seekers from France. On Britain’s end, the deal would likely be limited to taking asylum seekers from France with family ties to the UK, in exchange for an equal number of Channel migrants being returned to Calais. It is being reported that such a deal could be formally announced at the beginning of next month.
France has traditionally been reluctant to agree to such a deal, after the previous Dublin returns agreement was scrapped following Brexit. But French interior minister Bruno Retailleau is now keen to “send a clear message” to migrants hoping to make the journey through France and across the Channel.
No wonder. Small-boat crossings have hit record highs lately, with more than 18,000 migrants arriving in the UK so far this year. At the beginning of this month, almost 1,200 people arrived in small boats on a single day. Smugglers have even been advertising “summer sales” for migrants wanting to cross the Channel, offering special seasonal deals for thousands of pounds less than usual. There appears to be very little deterrent when it comes to making these small-boat crossings.
It’s not hard to see why. Currently, French law prevents police from interfering with small boats once they have entered the water. This means that smugglers can pick migrants up from the water without having to touch the beach. France has recently agreed to start intercepting these boats on the water for the first time, but time will tell how effective this will be.
It’s difficult to be too enthusiastic about any of this. The ideal number of people arriving into your country illegally is zero. As shadow home secretary Chris Philp complained, “we pay the French half a billion pounds to wave the boats off from Calais, and in return we get a merry-go-round where the same number still come here.”
It’s also hard to overstate just how dire the situation here in the UK is. The asylum system is blatantly failing. Earlier this week, it was reported that migrants living in taxpayer-funded asylum hotels were able to illegally secure work as fast-food delivery drivers within hours of entering the country. They can earn up to £1,000 a week via apps like Deliveroo and JustEat, paying to use the profiles of legitimate account holders—a practice that is, of course, against the rules of these services. More importantly, it is also against the law for asylum seekers to work at all if they have been in the country for less than 12 months.
One of the most infuriating things about this state of affairs is how straightforward the solution is. There is no reason why, as an island nation, the UK should be allowing itself to be overrun by illegal migrants. This was the thread that ran through shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick’s speech at the Now & England conference this Monday. Talking about the sheer numbers and cost of illegal migration, he pointed out that 160,000 people have arrived by small boat since 2018, each costing us roughly half a million pounds. For migration in general, the picture is bleak. Since 1997, net migration to the UK has totalled six million. “Around 15% of these people came to work,” Jenrick explained, “and many of them in low paid jobs, paying little tax at all. Overall, as little as 5% are set to be net contributors to our country.” As such, he called to “end this failed experiment” and to “only let in those who will clearly help our country.”
Worse still, he described the farcical situation where we welcome potential and actual terrorists with open arms, and refuse to deport criminals out of fear of breaching their human rights. Jenrick gestured to one case in which an Albanian criminal was allowed to remain in the UK because his son didn’t like the taste of foreign chicken nuggets.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Jenrick said. “If we reformed our human-rights laws completely and created a new architecture, we could swiftly detain and deport all those who come here illegally, stop the boats and remove foreign criminals.” True as this is, one could reasonably question why the Tories, during their 14 years in power, presided over the mass migration he is now bemoaning.
We might consider ignoring the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), as plenty of other nations do, and deporting our illegal migrants and foreign criminals regardless—but we would still have to contend with the Human Rights Act of 1988, which incorporates the (ECHR) into domestic British law.
The first thing the government would need to do, as Reform’s Nigel Farage pointed out in an interview with europeanconservativ.com’s editor-in-chief Mick Hume, is “change the law, get rid of the ECHR.”
Then the second thing you do, once the law is on side, is start deporting people, back to Afghanistan, Syria, or wherever. And I think you’d find it would end very, very quickly. I mean, in Australia, it took two weeks.
And then there is, of course, the anti-borders civil service ‘blob’ to be considered. “The obstacles in our way would be considerable. The educational establishment and much of Whitehall would be against us,” Farage said.
Not policing our borders is a political choice. Whether due to intent or inaction, our ruling classes have decided to give up on enforcing our laws and keeping citizens safe. Occasionally, public fury over how bad things have become gets too loud to ignore, and the state is forced to admit that having a de-facto open borders policy for all and sundry may not have been the cleverest of ideas. But even then, that recognition is short-lived.
Last month, Starmer made an unexpectedly strong speech lamenting how uncontrolled mass migration had turned the UK into an “island of strangers.” At the time, this was hailed as a welcome, though uncharacteristic, about-turn of Labour policy and a sign that we might finally see the government taking border control seriously. Not so, as it turns out. This week, he told the Observer that he “deeply regrets” using the phrase and blamed an alleged arson attack on his family home for not properly reading the speech before delivering it.
This is just one of the many reasons why the “one in, one out” deal will fall flat. There is zero political will among our government or state apparatus to actually “stop the boats” or “smash the gangs” or whichever slogan they prefer. These may momentarily placate an exhausted and angry public, but only for so long. It is clear to anyone paying attention that the machinery of government no longer sees protecting its borders—or its citizens—as a core responsibility. Until that changes, the farce will only continue.
Britain’s Border Failure Is a Political Choice
Migrants onboard a smugglers’ boat attempt to cross the English Channel off the beach of Gravelines, northern France, on June 16, 2025.
Sameer Al-Doumy / AFP
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After years of repeated failures, the UK government is once again trying to look busy on the border. UK prime minister Keir Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macron are currently in talks to secure a “one in, one out” migrant deal. Under this arrangement, Britain would send back Channel migrants to France within weeks of their arrival. In return, the UK would take asylum seekers from France. On Britain’s end, the deal would likely be limited to taking asylum seekers from France with family ties to the UK, in exchange for an equal number of Channel migrants being returned to Calais. It is being reported that such a deal could be formally announced at the beginning of next month.
France has traditionally been reluctant to agree to such a deal, after the previous Dublin returns agreement was scrapped following Brexit. But French interior minister Bruno Retailleau is now keen to “send a clear message” to migrants hoping to make the journey through France and across the Channel.
No wonder. Small-boat crossings have hit record highs lately, with more than 18,000 migrants arriving in the UK so far this year. At the beginning of this month, almost 1,200 people arrived in small boats on a single day. Smugglers have even been advertising “summer sales” for migrants wanting to cross the Channel, offering special seasonal deals for thousands of pounds less than usual. There appears to be very little deterrent when it comes to making these small-boat crossings.
It’s not hard to see why. Currently, French law prevents police from interfering with small boats once they have entered the water. This means that smugglers can pick migrants up from the water without having to touch the beach. France has recently agreed to start intercepting these boats on the water for the first time, but time will tell how effective this will be.
It’s difficult to be too enthusiastic about any of this. The ideal number of people arriving into your country illegally is zero. As shadow home secretary Chris Philp complained, “we pay the French half a billion pounds to wave the boats off from Calais, and in return we get a merry-go-round where the same number still come here.”
It’s also hard to overstate just how dire the situation here in the UK is. The asylum system is blatantly failing. Earlier this week, it was reported that migrants living in taxpayer-funded asylum hotels were able to illegally secure work as fast-food delivery drivers within hours of entering the country. They can earn up to £1,000 a week via apps like Deliveroo and JustEat, paying to use the profiles of legitimate account holders—a practice that is, of course, against the rules of these services. More importantly, it is also against the law for asylum seekers to work at all if they have been in the country for less than 12 months.
One of the most infuriating things about this state of affairs is how straightforward the solution is. There is no reason why, as an island nation, the UK should be allowing itself to be overrun by illegal migrants. This was the thread that ran through shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick’s speech at the Now & England conference this Monday. Talking about the sheer numbers and cost of illegal migration, he pointed out that 160,000 people have arrived by small boat since 2018, each costing us roughly half a million pounds. For migration in general, the picture is bleak. Since 1997, net migration to the UK has totalled six million. “Around 15% of these people came to work,” Jenrick explained, “and many of them in low paid jobs, paying little tax at all. Overall, as little as 5% are set to be net contributors to our country.” As such, he called to “end this failed experiment” and to “only let in those who will clearly help our country.”
Worse still, he described the farcical situation where we welcome potential and actual terrorists with open arms, and refuse to deport criminals out of fear of breaching their human rights. Jenrick gestured to one case in which an Albanian criminal was allowed to remain in the UK because his son didn’t like the taste of foreign chicken nuggets.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Jenrick said. “If we reformed our human-rights laws completely and created a new architecture, we could swiftly detain and deport all those who come here illegally, stop the boats and remove foreign criminals.” True as this is, one could reasonably question why the Tories, during their 14 years in power, presided over the mass migration he is now bemoaning.
We might consider ignoring the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), as plenty of other nations do, and deporting our illegal migrants and foreign criminals regardless—but we would still have to contend with the Human Rights Act of 1988, which incorporates the (ECHR) into domestic British law.
The first thing the government would need to do, as Reform’s Nigel Farage pointed out in an interview with europeanconservativ.com’s editor-in-chief Mick Hume, is “change the law, get rid of the ECHR.”
And then there is, of course, the anti-borders civil service ‘blob’ to be considered. “The obstacles in our way would be considerable. The educational establishment and much of Whitehall would be against us,” Farage said.
Not policing our borders is a political choice. Whether due to intent or inaction, our ruling classes have decided to give up on enforcing our laws and keeping citizens safe. Occasionally, public fury over how bad things have become gets too loud to ignore, and the state is forced to admit that having a de-facto open borders policy for all and sundry may not have been the cleverest of ideas. But even then, that recognition is short-lived.
Last month, Starmer made an unexpectedly strong speech lamenting how uncontrolled mass migration had turned the UK into an “island of strangers.” At the time, this was hailed as a welcome, though uncharacteristic, about-turn of Labour policy and a sign that we might finally see the government taking border control seriously. Not so, as it turns out. This week, he told the Observer that he “deeply regrets” using the phrase and blamed an alleged arson attack on his family home for not properly reading the speech before delivering it.
This is just one of the many reasons why the “one in, one out” deal will fall flat. There is zero political will among our government or state apparatus to actually “stop the boats” or “smash the gangs” or whichever slogan they prefer. These may momentarily placate an exhausted and angry public, but only for so long. It is clear to anyone paying attention that the machinery of government no longer sees protecting its borders—or its citizens—as a core responsibility. Until that changes, the farce will only continue.
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