Can Starmer convince the French to finally sign a migrant deal?
Everyone is watching and waiting, with breath duly bated, as to whether Starmer and the French can secure a landmark deal
Everyone is watching and waiting, with breath duly bated, as to whether Starmer and the French can secure a landmark deal to return migrants crossing the English Channel. The so-called 'one out, one in' plan under discussion would see those who arrive illegally in small boats returned to France, while the UK accepted instead migrants with a family link to those already in the UK. Although this will not reduce the overall net migration figures, if it works it will strengthen the idea that the government has some control of its borders. In time it could act as a deterrent to people paying people smugglers £5,000 a time to jump on a barely seaworthy dinghy.
Like all cynical observers, the talk that this is all going down to the wire seems to me designed to heighten the drama of the deal when it inevitably emerges. But the fact that it has taken a year for Starmer and Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, to get to this position is also revealing. Bluntly, Labour expected the old entente with France to be more cordiale than it has been over the last 12 months.
Indeed, it seems to me that one of the signal miscalculations Starmer's team made in opposition was to assume that just not being the wicked incompetent Tories would be enough to secure a range of favours from our European partners, who seem to have more immutable national interests than us.
On both migration and a new trading relationship, the mood music towards the first Labour PM in 14 years was good. Brussels was tired of the rows and the war in Ukraine showed that the UK still has a significant role to play in European defence. But that did not stop the French digging in over fishing rights with Nick Thomas-Symonds and Michael Ellam, Britain's EU negotiators, just as they had with David Frost, Oliver Robbins and David Davis. 'Keir being Keir did not stop the French being French,' observed one Downing Street aide.
Migration was the one thing where Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister's chief of staff, seemed to have misunderstood the state of play in 2024. Even he thought the Tories were not really trying to solve the small boats issue in order to keep immigration a salient issue for the general election. Labour would do deals with EU countries, focus on 'upstream working' and (of course) 'smash the gangs'.
No matter how often those of us who talked regularly to the Sunak No. 10 or the Home Office, and stressed that the Conservatives really were trying to get the numbers under control, Labour thought it was all a trick. Cooper is finding it no easier to strike returns deals than Robert Jenrick when he was immigration minister, or upstream working than Ben Wallace tried as defence secretary.
The last year, in this regard above all others, has proved a rude awakening. The fact that Team Starmer now wants a deterrent deal with France shows that they accept that the premise of the Rwanda arrangement was not quite as skew-whiff as they said a year ago.
And the fact that France has been a blockage, so far at least, to migrant returns and EU trade arrangements (which remain very much up in the air) shows that sentimentality will never get in the way of France's national interest. Remember that when the gushing starts tomorrow.
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- The National
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The National
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Launch of Corbyn-Sultana party has big implications for Scotland
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READ MORE: Labour should look to Scotland for reforms their MPs might support I imagine it will depend largely on two variables, the first being how the SNP leadership respond and whether they will finally embrace a less careful and centrist position than they have been of late; and whether the new Corbyn-Sultana offering will be a welcoming political home for independence supporters. From what has been emerging in the past few days, though, it sounds like the latter is increasingly likely to be the case – and it would be a smart political move for them to make if they were to make it. The SNP's appeal to progressives, independence supporters, young people and anti-Tory voters has been the key to their success, particularly since 2014. But this new party isn't being born out of nowhere. We're in the depths of a severe disillusionment with establishment politics and a fear of what lies ahead if we fail to meet the threat of the far right where it demands to be met. The left's disillusionment far from ends with Labour and the SNP are going to have a problem on their hands if the leadership continue to fail to inspire going forward. The Scottish independence movement has been grumbling in the background for quite some time now. Alba, in a completely different way, were another offshoot of the same problem for the SNP – disillusionment. Granted, with Alba there was a distinct sprinkling of right-wing narratives and political differences that emerged from an unsustainably broad independence support within the party. But that disillusionment was still a factor, and it's rearing its head again in a way that is a far bigger problem than Alba ever have been. Nicola Sturgeon's (below) departure rocked the party to its core, it was always going to. Humza Yousaf did his best with a bad situation but ultimately didn't have the time to embed that he needed to achieve what he was capable of; and now, with John Swinney back at the helm, the steadying of the ship has veered a little too far into a centrist bore-fest for those hungry for change. Enter an unapologetically progressive alternative headed by a man whose policies were incredibly popular in Scotland and a woman who has demonstrated a political courage Scots tend to reward; and factor in its potential support for Scotland's right to choose our own constitutional future – and therein lies a massive problem for the SNP leadership. Of course, all of this is still speculative. The new party doesn't even have a name yet, let alone a decisive position on Scottish independence, but even in its infancy, it does seem to be inspiring hope among those on the left who have been missing it. With that being said, this isn't quite a coronation. There's, typically speaking, a long road between forming a party and winning seats. But times are changing fast. It was just a short time ago that we thought Farage winning seats in Scotland was nothing other than a hate-encrusted pipe dream, and yet, here we are. It's also very true that this new party could help the independence movement and might even have the potential to break the deadlock it's currently stuck in. If it successfully attracts left-wing voters, particularly in England, who either don't engage with independence or remain opposed to it, and if it helps to push the idea that independence is a democratic necessity rather than a battle between opposing nations, that could be the breakthrough the movement has been crying out for. A path to the cordial divorce we long for – an outcome that frankly isn't going to be the result of a Starmer-Swinney centrist showdown. Though Corbyn and Sultana are well-positioned to make that argument if they're smart about it – and everything points to the likelihood that they will be. Independence as a concept isn't enough of a radical left policy on its own and the SNP are relying a little too heavily on the monopoly they have over independence supporters. READ MORE: David Lammy hands taxpayer-funded Foreign Office job to Labour donor The party's caution and lack of momentum under Swinney and Kate Forbes on issues that matter to the left is going to hinder support for independence within its ranks, even if Corbyn and Sultana don't come along and fill the void with big, radical ideas. And even if their new offering chooses not to support independence, the prospect of a genuinely socialist government in Westminster poses the threat of some independence voters turning away from the cause. It is a difficult line for this new left-wing offering to tread, though. Independence isn't a particularly popular policy south of the Border and ultimately, that's where they need to make ground if they're going to pose a credible threat to Farage and Starmer. And if they fail to support it in Scotland, this idea could be written off here as quickly as it began. But given both Corbyn and Sultana's commitments to democracy and progressive politics more generally, I think there's definitely room for them to tread it successfully. Things are broadly uncertain, but one thing is for sure – if the SNP aren't going to act like the party of hope and transformation, another one is going to, one way or another.
