Downing Street ‘confident' UK-France migrant returns deal complies with law
The one in, one out migrant return scheme set out by the Prime Minister and Emmanuel Macron is due to begin within weeks, but still needs final legal verification and consultation with Brussels.
Asked whether the Government was concerned about the scheme potentially being held up in the courts, a Number 10 spokesman said: 'We've done a lot of work to make sure the system is robust to legal challenges, and of course, France is a safe country and a member of the ECHR.
'We're confident that this arrangement complies with both domestic and international law, and clearly… we've discussed these arrangements already with the (European) Commission.'
The Prime Minister is holding talks with his Cabinet at an 'away day' at Chequers, his grace-and-favour Chequers country estate, on Friday after securing the agreement on Thursday.
Ministers expect the commission to support the arrangement, Downing Street said, amid concerns among some European governments that migrants who have travelled to Britain could end up back on their territory.
Under the pilot scheme, for each small boat migrant sent back across the English Channel an asylum seeker will be allowed to enter the UK from France under a legal route.
By resetting our relationships across Europe, my government has made new levels of co-operation possible.
For the first time, migrants arriving via small boat will be detained and returned to France — smashing the business model of people smuggling gangs.
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) July 11, 2025
No details have been given about how many people will be covered by the pilot, but French officials had indicated it could initially be limited to about 50 a week – a small fraction of the weekly average this year of 782.
Speaking to broadcasters on Friday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper declined to put a number on the scheme but she insisted it would 'fundamentally undermine' the people smugglers organising the crossings.
Meanwhile, crossings continued in the Channel on Friday, with HM Coastguard confirming UK Border Force and RNLI vessels had been sent to respond to 'multiple incidents' involving small boats.
At least 21,000 people have already made the journey since January, putting 2025 on course to be a record year for crossings.
To those considering dangerous Channel crossings – there is now no guarantee you will remain in the UK.
The UK-France pilot agreement undermines the business model of the criminal gangs who profit from endangering the lives of migrants.
— Home Office (@ukhomeoffice) July 11, 2025
The returns scheme will be accompanied by a crackdown on illegal working in the UK as the Government attempts to address the 'pull factors' encouraging people to attempt the crossing from France.
The Home Office said authorities would soon undertake 'a major nationwide blitz targeting illegal working hotspots, focusing on the gig economy and migrants working as delivery riders'.
Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat have already committed to ramp up facial verification and fraud checks over the coming months after being called in for talks with ministers.
Mr Macron has repeatedly stressed the need for the UK to avoid attracting migrants, saying 'you should not underestimate the impact the situation has' in parts of northern France around Calais and Dunkirk.
He said a third of illegal migrants entering Europe's Schengen border-free area sought to eventually reach the UK, and welcomed measures to tackle illegal work.
Prominent figures including former head of MI6 Sir Alex Younger and former Labour prime minister Sir Tony Blair have made the case for digital ID cards to deter Channel crossings.
Number 10 has publicly downplayed the prospect of introducing such a measure but said the Government was 'always looking for a range of solutions'.
Asked on Friday why the proposal was not part of Government plans, a spokesman said: 'It is not Government policy.
'Our focus is on a huge rollout of e-visas, with more than 10 million of them already issued, clearly.
'As we demonstrated over the last couple of days, we are always looking for a range of solutions to both illegal migration and illegal working. But mandatory ID cards are not parts of our plans.'
Sir Keir said the 'completely unprecedented' scale of the crackdown on illegal working would mean for cross-Channel migrants that 'the jobs they have been promised in the UK will no longer exist'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
28 minutes ago
- The Independent
Why Tory leader no longer considers herself Nigerian despite ancestry
Kemi Badenoch has stated she no longer identifies as Nigerian, despite her ancestry. The Conservative leader confirmed she has not renewed her Nigerian passport since the early 2000s. Born in Wimbledon in 1980, Ms Badenoch was raised in Lagos, Nigeria, and the United States. She explained her identity is now rooted in her family, stating 'home is where my now family is'. Ms Badenoch was among the last individuals to receive birthright citizenship in the UK before the rules were abolished the following year.
The Guardian
31 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Far-right extremists using games platforms to radicalise teenagers, report warns
Far-right extremists are using livestream gaming platforms to target and radicalise teenage players, a report has warned. The new research, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, reveals how a range of extremist groups and individuals use platforms that allow users to chat and livestream while playing video games to recruit and radicalise vulnerable users, mainly young males. UK crime and counter-terror agencies have urged parents to be especially alert to online offenders targeting youngsters during the summer holidays. In an unprecedented move, last week Counter Terrorism Policing, MI5 and the National Crime Agency issued a joint warning to parents and carers that online offenders 'will exploit the school holidays to engage in criminal acts with young people when they know less support is readily available'. Dr William Allchorn, a senior research fellow at Anglia Ruskin University's international policing and public protection research institute, who carried out the study with his colleague Dr Elisa Orofino, said 'gaming-adjacent' platforms were being used as 'digital playgrounds' for extremist activity. Allchorn found teenage players were being deliberately 'funnelled' by extremists from mainstream social media platforms to these sites, where 'the nature and quantity of the content makes these platforms very hard to police'. The most common ideology being pushed by extremist users was far right, with content celebrating extreme violence and school shootings also shared. On Tuesday, Felix Winter, who threatened to carry out a mass shooting at his Edinburgh school, was jailed for six years after the court heard the 18-year-old had been 'radicalised' online, spending more than 1,000 hours in contact with a pro-Nazi Discord group. Allchorn said: 'There has definitely been a more coordinated effort by far-right groups like Patriotic Alternative to recruit young people through gaming events that first emerged during lockdown. But since then a lot of extremist groups have been deplatformed by mainstream spaces, so individuals will now lurk on public groups or channels on Facebook or Discord, for example, and use this as a way of identifying someone who might be sympathetic to reach out to.' He added that, while some younger users turn to extreme content for its shock value among their peers, this can make them vulnerable to being targeted. Extremists have been forced to become more sophisticated as the majority of platforms have banned them, Allchorn said. 'Speaking to local community safety teams, they told us that approaches are now about trying to create a rapport rather than making a direct ideological sell.' The study also spoke to moderators, who described their frustration at inconsistent enforcement policies on their platforms and the burden of deciding whether content or users should be reported to law enforcement agencies. While in-game chat is unmoderated, moderators said they were still overwhelmed by the volume and complexity of harmful content, including the use of hidden symbols to circumvent banned words that would be picked up by automated moderation tools, for example, a string of symbols stitched together to represent a swastika. Allchorn highlighted the need for critical digital literacy for parents as well as law enforcement so they could better understand how these platforms and subcultures operate. Last October Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, revealed that '13% of all those being investigated by MI5 for involvement in UK terrorism are under 18', a threefold increase in three years. AI tools are being used to assist with moderation, but they struggle to interpret memes or when language is ambiguous or sarcastic.
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
Labour's border chaos is fuelling public fury and fear as dangerous foreign offenders vanish into thin air
Labour's not smashing it IT is little more than a year since Labour came to power promising to smash the people-smuggling gangs. Instead they have smashed the economy — with inflation up, unemployment up and business confidence at a record low. The only significant growth is in the number of illegal migrants coming here in small boats. Already over 25,000 have arrived this year — a 50 per cent rise on the 2024 figure by this stage, which was shocking enough. That number is dwarfed by the UK's astonishing 700,000 population increase in just a year — almost entirely due to legal immigration — which itself is utterly unsustainable. The arrival of thousands of mostly undocumented illegal migrants is symptomatic of just how badly Britain has lost control of its borders. It's not just the millions of pounds it costs taxpayers every day to shower the migrants with handouts and put them up in hotels, nor the fact that so many of them find black market jobs. Most of the arrivals are young men of fighting age — yet the authorities seem to have little idea who they are, even if they end up in court. National emergency We discovered earlier this week that the number of foreign sex offenders and violent criminals in prison in England and Wales is at a record high, and that 40 per cent of people charged with sex attacks in the capital were foreign nationals. Now we learn foreign criminals are simply walking free mid-trial and disappearing under false names because of a dangerous 'disconnect' between prosecutors and immigration enforcement. It is little wonder that people — not least mothers — worry about migrant hotels on their doorsteps, or that protests are growing, or that polls show immigration is the number one issue concerning voters. So what is the Government doing about this national emergency? Reform UK's rising star Laila Cunningham It seems to have no plan, beyond a sketchy one-in-one-out deal with France and setting up a spy unit to track anyone on social media discussing anti-migrant sentiment or two-tier justice. While Britain continues to house soaring numbers of uninvited guests in four-star hotels, America has seen a massive drop in illegal border crossings because tough detention centres and deportations await those who do. President Donald Trump has shown the problem CAN be tackled, if only the political will exists. The Government, which ditched the Rwanda scheme — the only viable deterrent — as its first act in power, has shown precious little will so far. It's about time Sir Keir Starmer realised the urgency of the situation... and started taking tough action of his own. 1
