Labour’s flagship ‘one in, one out’ migrant returns deal with France to end in October, report claims
Labour’s flagship “one in, one out” migrant repatriation deal with France will expire in October, according to French media.
The pilot programme, launched last August, sees small boat migrants making the perilous journey across the Channel returned to Paris and other migrants allowed to apply for asylum in the UK from France.
While the UK government does not provide regular updates on the number of people sent back under the deal, the latest figures show more than 900 migrants have been sent back to France so far. In return, England accepted nearly 900 refugees from France.
The original pilot agreement with France was scheduled to expire at the end of this month, but it was extended by three months.
Now French newspaper Le Monde The flagship plan will expire in October and will not be extended, it said.
Citing a source at the Home Office, the French equivalent of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the newspaper said the French wanted to “Europeanise” the management of the Canal with a common Europe-wide strategy, rather than focusing on British-French agreements.
The European Commission published an action plan on June 18 to prevent outflows from Asia, Africa and the Middle East at their source and accelerate returns.
They acknowledged that the EU needed a “whole-of-route approach” and should “improve coordination for returns along this route”.
A source from the Ministry of Internal Affairs said: Le Monde: “For the first time a commission document confirms the fact that this is Europe’s problem. This is very important.”
The European parliament this month approved changes to policy on the return of foreign nationals staying in the EU illegally, in a move that will open the door to “return centres” outside Europe.
Mirroring the Rwanda deal struck by the Conservatives, it will be possible for EU countries to move migrants to centers in another country that agrees to receive them. These return agreements can only be made with countries that “support human rights, international law and the principle of non-refoulement.” [not returning a migrant to their home country if it is too dangerous]”.
EU countries will have to inform the commission and other member states before deciding to proceed with third-party returns.
In April, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood agreed to pay France £662 million over the next three years in a bid to reduce numbers coming to the UK.
Around £160 million of this money will be spent on new tactics such as stopping “taxi boats” picking up migrants offshore, and this depends on the success of the French operation.
France will be measured by the number of boats stopped, the number of people smugglers arrested and the number of migrants stopped from boarding boats, among other things.
Britain will pay around £501 million for more police officers and more surveillance technology on the coast of northern France, despite a previous funding increase failing to reduce the number of Channel crossings.
There is a summit between the EU and the UK planned for July 22, but the chances of the summit going ahead are increasingly slim after Sir Keir Starmer said he would resign on Monday.
The EU is “re-evaluating” plans for the summit, which is expected to conclude talks on the youth mobility plan, among other issues, a European Commission spokesman said on Monday.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs was contacted for comment.
