Keir Starmer is facing increasing pressure over his pledge to “smash the gangs” after it emerged that a man deported under his flagship “one in, one out” deal with France has returned to the UK on a small boat.
In a double blow for the prime minister, the number of small boat migrants who have arrived in the UK so far this year has also passed the total for the whole of last year.
Just 42 people have been returned so far under the agreement, announced with great fanfare by the prime minister and French president Emmanuel Macron. Under its terms, for each small boat migrant sent back across the Channel an asylum seeker will be allowed to enter the UK from France under a legal route.
At the time, Sir Keir said it was a “breakthrough moment” which would “turn the tables” on the people smugglers – but a Downing Street spokesperson on Wednesday said the policy was not a “silver bullet” to tackle the problem.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused the government of being in “total chaos” and “too weak to take the tough decisions to secure our borders”.
But home secretary Shabana Mahmood hit out accusing the last Tory government of leaving “our borders in crisis, and we are still living with the consequences. These figures are shameful – the British people deserve better”.
She said the Labour government had detained and removed more than 35,000 people illegally in the UK, but said: “It is clear we must go further and faster – removing more of those here illegally, and stopping migrants from making small boat crossings in the first place.
“And I have been clear: I will do whatever it takes to restore order to our border.”
The man, who was initially removed to France as part of the deal before returning in a small boat, told The Guardian he is a victim of modern slavery at the hands of smugglers in northern France.
Currently being held at an immigration detention centre, the Home Office is looking to expedite his removal.
“If I had felt that France was safe for me I would never have returned to the UK,” he told the newspaper.
The double blow to one of his key pledges came on the same day as Sir Keir met with Western Balkans leaders, as the UK seeks to agree on further measures to bring down the number of migrants arriving illegally.
Some 22,000 people were smuggled by gangs last year along routes through the region.
The number of migrant arrivals in small boats in the UK has now exceeded the total number of arrivals in 2024, which was 36,816.
Last year, small boat crossings made up 4 per cent of overall immigration to the UK, but more than 80 per cent of unauthorised arrivals.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We will not accept any abuse of our borders, and we will do everything in our power to remove those without the legal right to be here.
“Individuals who are returned under the pilot and subsequently attempt to re-enter the UK illegally will removed.”
Speaking to The Independent from a migrant processing centre in Algeria, foreign minister Hamish Falconer warned that “simple slogans” will not fix the migrant crisis.
He said: “We’ve got to recognise just how complex these migration flows are, how much they are underpinned by illicit finance and criminal gangs, and we’ve got to be serious.
“I’m serious, the home secretary is serious, and the foreign secretary is serious about not just doing everything we can to stop the boats crossing, but going even further back up to the chain as well, to places even beyond Algeria, to Guinea and elsewhere, to make sure that this business model, which has been threatening the borders of so many countries, the borders here in North Africa.”
After his meeting, Sir Keir announced that gang members and financiers enabling the people-smuggling trade, including a Kosovan passport forgery ring, have had been banned from travelling to the UK and frozen out of the UK’s financial system.
The PM said: “There’s a criminal route through the Western Balkans bringing illegal migrants to the UK, and we’re determined to shut it down by working with European partners.”
More to follow…
