First came the Starmer-Macron handshake, sealing the UK-France migrant treaty. Following that was a series of Home Office stories about crackdowns on illegal working and smuggler gang adverts, filling the sleepy summer news pages. Then, the 21-page treaty itself was unveiled. And, finally, on Thursday morning Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, sombrely declared that the first migrants had been detained pending their return to France, with pixelated video footage of them supplied to broadcasters just in time for the evening TV bulletins.
In terms of media handling, press coverage and communications, the one-in, one-out migrant deal with France has been impressively choreographed, with a drumbeat of related announcements, statements and policies building up to the launch of the plan. It has demonstrated that the government are taking action, rather than merely talking about taking action. It may also, at least for a few days, have slowed the bandwagon of Reform UK. But far tougher tests lie ahead.
The biggest question is whether the one-in, one-out deal will work in stopping small boat crossings
The main problem is that the scheme is unproven; indeed, it is a pilot, which means that things are likely to go wrong or not work as intended, as tends to happen when ideas are trialled. One obvious risk is that the French authorities refuse to accept a significant number of the migrants selected by the British for removal or delay making decisions about taking them. There are strict timescales laid out in the treaty, which says both countries have agreed to work towards an ‘end-to-end process’ of three months.
It is also unclear how the one-in, one-out balance between returns to France of migrants on small boats and arrivals in the UK of asylum seekers will be achieved. There is a danger, for the government, that the process of requesting transfer to Britain from France is seen to be smooth and swift, acting as a magnet for refugees to apply, while the reciprocal returns arrangements become gummed up. Capacity in immigration detention centres, where there are currently only 400 spare beds, may limit the number of migrants who can be identified for return to France under the pact, particularly as the government continues to ramp up detentions and removals under other immigration powers.
As constitutional experts have pointed out, the treaty was laid before parliament on Tuesday when neither the Commons nor the Lords was sitting and ratified by the government 24 hours later. That meant that the standard procedure for the scrutiny of international treaties by MPs and Peers, under which ratification can take place only after 21 days, was not followed. Ministers are permitted to bypass these rules in ‘exceptional’ cases, but whether it was lawful to do so for the one-in, one-out treaty is expected to form one of the main grounds of legal challenges against it that will inevitably be brought on behalf of at least some of the migrants chosen for removal to France.
Their cases are also likely to revolve around the way officials selected them for deportation, ahead of others, and whether an individual’s personal circumstances were sufficiently taken into account. The legal hazard for the Home Office is that some migrants will reveal background details about their treatment in their homeland, during their journey to British shores or at the hands of smuggler gangs that make the courts uncomfortable about their detention and imminent removal, potentially undermining the entire scheme.
But there are a number of key factors that will work in the government’s favour – and help them clear many of the hurdles. On the legal front, France is regarded as a ‘safe’ country, so human rights claims that migrants will not be treated properly or fairly are destined to fail. In contrast, the Rwanda scheme, introduced by the Conservatives, was blocked because the UK Supreme Court ruled that the east African state was not a safe place for migrants. Operationally, the Rwanda experiment provided Home Office civil servants with valuable experience in devising a large-scale removals programme. Dan Hobbs, director general of the migration and borders group, who led the planning, is now helping to steer through the accord with France. And the principle behind the new treaty – returning people who’ve arrived in the UK without permission to a safe country they’ve just travelled from – is likely to command broad public and political support which the government will try to capitalise on during its forthcoming court battles against migrants and campaigners.
The biggest question, however, is whether the one-in, one-out deal will work in stopping, or at least substantially reducing, small boat crossings. It’s been widely reported that only around 50 migrants will be returned to France each week, compared with an average of more than 800 who make the journey to Britain. At that tiny level of returns – one in 16, migrants who have risked their lives to get to camps in northern France will willingly take the chance that they might be sent back, while smugglers could even use the low return rate to promote their services.
It could be that suggestions that returns will be in such low numbers are part of a subtle campaign of expectation management by the Home Office – a common practice among seasoned politicians and advisers. If returns were to exceed 50 per week, it would be viewed by some as a great success. A more likely scenario is that 50 is a figure which is considered to be achievable on practical grounds and acceptable to the French, who have their own major issues around immigration.
The government deserves credit for putting the treaty in place 12 months after taking office. But unless the number of returns ramps up significantly, it is virtually impossible to see the one-in, one-out scheme acting as a deterrent, certainly on any meaningful scale. That means ministers must accelerate their work on other fronts to stem the crossings, bring order to the asylum system and move migrants out of hotels. A deal with countries in the Balkans for ‘return hubs’ to house asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected must be next on the agenda.
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