Huge flaw in Keir Starmer's deal to stop UK migrant crisis exposed by French border cop

An experienced French police major has told the Express he has no doubt Keir Starmer's 'groundbreaking' deal with France to stop the boats will fail.

"It is going to be ineffective, it won't change anything," said Major Nicolas Laroye, an illegal migration specialist based in Dunkirk and the main representative at the UNSA police union.

In his view, the new measures would add further complications for those attempting small boat journeys but would not effectively deter them.

"What we've done for years is make it harder for migrants and massively increase our equipment and manpower. But they have never stopped trying to come to Britain.

"I've been in the Border Force since 2008 and I've seen so many people try again and again because this is their 'El Dorado'."

Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron announced a new agreement to tackle illegal migration at a June Downing Street press conference they hailed as "unprecedented."

The deal's standout promise was a new pilot scheme that would see some of the migrants who'd made the dangerous journey across the Channel return to France.

Although it is only due to affect around 6% of the total coming to Britain by small boat, the two leaders emphasised the potential "deterrent effect" of the one-in-one out arrangement.

However, Maj Laroye was sceptical of this claim and, based on decades of catching migrants attempting to travel illegally to Britain, believes people won't stop taking the journey if sent back.

He said: "We don't have the stats since the new deal. It's too early to say how many might have continued to try [coming to the UK after being returned to France].

"But when people are caught trying to cross on ferries and in the Channel Tunnel, it is the policy that they are always returned to France and processed.

"I know in these cases we'd catch people repeatedly trying to cross. Often, I'd catch the same person three or four. Once I stopped seeing them, I assumed they had managed to reach the UK.

"I don't have a doubt that those returned under the new deal will continue to try and come to Britain by small boat. I've seen it with my own eyes."

Major Laroye added that the existing policy of not accepting small boat returns only existed because they fell outside of a technicality relating to an agreement signed between the two nations in the 1990s around illegal migration.

"Before the deal, the only reason France refused to accept migrant returns was because it couldn't be proved that a small boat had come from our shores," he said.

Last week, the number of migrants travelling to Britain by small boats passed 50,000 since Labour came to power, a figure reached faster than under numerous Conservative governments.

Following the passing of that milestone, Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp travelled with the Express to Dunkirk to see firsthand how migrants are making it from the beaches of France to small boats on the Channel.

Learning of the police officer's comments from the infamous Gravelines beach, which just hours earlier had played host to over a hundred migrants boarding a dinghy, Philp's response was that this showed the deal was doomed.

"I think if you've got an experienced French police officer who has worked around here for years and years saying the Government's new deal is not going to work, that is extremely credible," he told the Express.

"What he says makes sense because if 70 people go across and only one gets sent back, it stands to reason that there is going to be no deterrent.

"I think for removals to work [they] need to either [go] back to the country of origin [or], if that's not possible, to a third country like Rwanda.

"That policy would have worked. But the UK Government cancelled it last summer, just days before it was due to start. [It was a] catastrophic mistake and why we've seen record ever crossing numbers this year."

In response to Chris Philp's comments, a Labour source added: "The Tories' Rwanda scheme wasted £700 million to return just four volunteers. Chris Philp became Immigration Minister in February 2020, when only 2,400 people had crossed the Channel in small boats. By the time he left that job nineteen months later, 25,500 people had crossed the Channel. This crisis exploded under his watch.

"The days of gimmicks and broken promises are over - we will restore order to our borders with the seriousness and competence the British people deserve."