Emmanuel Macron departed London yesterday evening after a three-day state visit, proclaiming: “Long live l’Entente amicale!” The return of amicable Anglo-French relations has led to the announcement of a “one in, one out” pilot scheme to try and tackle record numbers of small boats Channel crossings. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the “ground-breaking” scheme “will show others trying to make the same journey that it will be in vain”. And yet the Government has so far refused to say how many illegal migrants will be exchanged for those with “a strong case for asylum in Britain”.

At least 21,000 migrants have made the journey since January, up 50% on the same time last year. When asked about the exchange agreement this morning, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the Government had not “fixed the ultimate number”. Questions over the actual figures involved were prompted when Le Monde reported that the figure may be capped at 50 per week. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp was quick to state that with those numbers, only one in 17 illegal arrivals would be returned to France.

A Government spokesperson today told UnHerd that “we’re not going into numbers.” They added: “Obviously, numbers will vary in scale and time based on a range of factors and, as the Home Secretary said this morning, we’ll update in due course.” Claiming that “this is what serious government looks like”, the spokesperson said that the aim was to show the journey was “pointless”.

However, pull factors remain. During Labour’s first half-year in power, 14 more asylum hotels were opened (with seven closed) and the latest figures show that the Government spent £2.8 billion — 20% of its aid budget — assisting refugees in the UK in 2024.

Never one to miss a political opportunity, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was on a fishing boat on the Channel viewing the operation. Clad in a fisherman’s smock and kerchief, he watched as the UK Border Force rescued a dinghy with 78 migrants. There were one woman and three children on board. Farage told the Times: “We are witnessing a crime and yet everyone seems happy. Border Force are happy, the French are happy.” He called the “one in, one out” scheme a “humiliation for Brexit Britain”. He added: “We have acted today as an EU member and bowed down to an arrogant French President.”

As it happened, that “arrogant French President” made some stark comments on the state of Brexit Britain yesterday. “Many people explained that Brexit would make it more possible to fight effectively against illegal migration,” Macron told a joint press conference alongside Starmer yesterday. “But since Brexit, the UK has no illegal migration agreement with the EU […] That creates an incentive to make the crossing, the precise opposite of what Brexit promised.”

The French President claimed that “the British people were sold a lie, which was that [migration] was a problem with Europe. With your government, we’re pragmatic, and for the first time in nine years we are providing a response.”

New polling this week suggested that 40% of Reform UK voters would consider backing Labour if Starmer could stop the boats. What’s more, Conservative peer and pollster Robert Hayward has claimed that support for Farage’s party has “topped out”. Yet, consistently reaching over 30% in the polls, the upstart party will be more than pleased if that’s where support plateaus. And with Labour refusing to put a figure on its latest scheme, critics — none more vociferous than Farage — will say it’s merely another gesture on the long road of failure.

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Max Mitchell is UnHerd’s Assistant Editor, Newsroom.

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