If there was one thing that symbolised what many still see as the fraudulent approach of Brexiteers during the EU referendum in 2016, it was the infamous bus promising £350 million extra a week for the NHS.
But maybe Brexit critics should consider another image.
In the words of Emmanuel Macron at a joint press conference with Sir Keir Starmer yesterday to unveil a one in, one out migration exchange deal, the real whopper was told by Brexiteers when Nigel Farage unveiled his controversial poster of thousands of migrants at the EU border with the words “breaking point”.
It came with a claim that if the UK did not leave the EU, it would be forced to accept all those preparing to stampede across Europe.
In an epic rant at yesterday’s press conference on the subject of Brexit, the French president, who refused to meet Farage during his three-day state visit, was clear that he considered this to be the biggest lie of all.
To the obvious embarrassment of Sir Keir Starmer standing next to him, Macron did not hold back on how the promise of controlling immigration, both legal and illegal and putting an end to out-of-control numbers had been falsely used by those who wanted to leave the EU.
He said: “The British people were sold a lie that the problem was Europe. For the first time in nine years, Britain is being pragmatic.”
But it is worth looking at the detail of what he said in terms of how leaving the EU not only failed to solve a problem but has made it worse.
“We need to understand that since Brexit, and I’ll say this honestly, because it’s not your case, prime minister, but many people in your country said that Brexit would help better fight illegal immigration.
“However, it is since Brexit that the UK no longer has any migration agreement with EU. So, for people wanting to cross, there is no legal admission way in, nor a way of sending people back after a crossing. This is a pull factor to attempt the crossing, exactly the inverse effect of what Brexit promised.”
The French president was not wrong.
The fact is that leaving the EU and simultaneously the Dublin Agreement neutered Britain’s chances to simply return people to safe countries in the EU that illegal migrants travel through to get to the UK.
The Dublin Agreement specifically allowed countries to send back migrants to the first safe country they arrived in, which was a bit more of a problem for countries such as Italy, Spain and some in Eastern Europe.
It was also interesting to note Macron’s claim that a third of all the illegal migrants in the Schengen free travel area of the EU were aiming for Britain because of its pull factors, including language, welfare benefits and the ease of working undetected in the black economy.
Even on legal migration, we saw a huge increase after Brexit from what were already high levels, despite the “take back control” message of the referendum campaign.
Sir Keir pointedly noted that while he and the French president were discussing their “groundbreaking” returns agreement, Mr Farage was out on the Channel taking pictures of boats packed with migrants coming over.
He has been doing that since 2020, when, not coincidentally, the UK had left the EU and the small boats crisis quickly began.
The Reform UK leader and others on the right will argue that the real problem is other aspects of international law, including membership of the European Convention of Human Rights or the Refugee Convention, which gives migrants the right to apply to stay in the UK because of family ties or for other compelling reasons.
They want Brexit to continue as a process to withdraw Britain from this framework of international agreements drawn up in large part by the UK itself to help establish international order.
It was the “easy answers of populism” complained about by Starmer and Macron yesterday, and would lead to the UK being isolated just as Donald Trump, Farage’s ally in the White House, is doing to the US.
The legal framework had a safety valve in it while Britain was still part of the EU, but the lesson of 2016 is that once one part of an intricate network of deals unravels, then much else follows.
Not surprisingly, Farage complained that Starmer’s pilot “one in, one out” deal was a betrayal of Brexit, taking Britain back to the EU.
But as an exasperated French president noted, it was actually Britain “being pragmatic for the first time in nine years”.
It would be a great irony, given the nature of the 2016 debate, if migration, more than anything else, ends up being the reason the UK eventually unpicks the effects of Brexit and maybe even rejoins in the long term.
The UK government is too embarrassed to address Macron’s points at the moment, but the French president has shone a spotlight once again on the strong possibility that the biggest decision by this country in the 21st century was made based on a fabric of lies.
