So the ‘one in, one out’ deal is dead. Quelle surprise – as the French might say. Since the initiative was launched on 2 August last year, approximately 1,500 people have been returned to France and a similar number sent in the other direction. In the same period, more than 40,000 migrants have crossed the Channel illegally in boats of varying size.
According to reports, Britain was keen to continue the arrangement whereby the Home Office returns one illegal immigrant in exchange for accepting a legitimate asylum seeker. France was not and the deal officially expires today.
Paris wants what is described as an ‘EU-wide returns scheme’ rather than one arranged with Britain. Perhaps Andy Burnham will use the collapse of the deal as one more reason why Britain should rejoin the EU. Emmanuel Macron would like nothing more than to see Britain commit to rejoining the bloc. No European leader has berated the Brits as much as the French president for having had the temerity to leave the EU.
There won’t be any new initiative between now and next summer at the earliest
When Macron and Starmer hammered out the terms for the ‘one in, one out’ deal last year, the president claimed the small boats crisis was a result of Brexit. ‘The current situation is actually giving an incentive to make the crossing,’ he said. ‘And this is therefore the exact opposite of what Brexit had proposed and promised…the British people were sold a lie.’
Another explanation for the small boats crisis is the lack of will in Paris and London to seriously address the problem. Australia under Tony Abbott in 2013 and the current Trump administration have shown that when a country is determined to stop its borders being breached in vast numbers it can be done.
Britain and France are led by governments who are blasé about border control. Macron has been in Madrid this week, visiting his friend Pedro Sanchez. The French president and the Spanish prime minister are the two EU leaders most opposed to the bloc’s ‘return hub’ scheme, describing it as ‘not our Europe’.
The ‘one in, one out’ scheme has been another eye-watering example of wasted money. It’s estimated that each migrant returned cost around £56,000. That’s a grand total of £84 million. But what’s £84 million when Britain has already blown nearly ten times that amount?
Between 2014 and the end of 2022, Britain filled French coffers to the tune of £232 million in return for repeated guarantees to slash illegal immigration. The results were disappointing, so in March 2023, Britain shelled out an additional £500 million.
Standing alongside Emmanuel Macron, then prime minister Rishi Sunak declared that this time, ‘the UK and France will ensure that nobody can exploit our systems with impunity,’ adding that he and the president were determined to ‘put an end to this disgusting trade in human life’. Nearly 37,000 people arrived in England illegally on small boats in 2024, 7,000 more than in 2023.
When the ‘one in, one out’ deal was announced last year, I made a prediction in these pages: ‘This latest plan to solve the small boats crisis will play out like every other since 2002: a firm handshake, a media fanfare and a complete failure.’
I wasn’t alone in predicting its rapid disintegration. Contrary to what many politicians think, the British people are not stupid. They know when they’re being sold a pup.
There won’t be any new initiative between now and next summer at the earliest. Macron has entered the final six months of his presidency and he won’t want to waste any of that precious time on the Channel migrant crisis. The trafficking gangs are politically savvy. They will likely use this leadership vacuum in France to increase the numbers of crossings. Thousands in, none out
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