The UK will begin returning migrants arriving in small boats to France within weeks under a new pilot scheme, Sir Keir Starmer has said.
Under the “one in, one out” deal, some arrivals would be detained and returned to France. In exchange, the UK would accept an equivalent number of asylum seekers, subject to security checks and provided they had not tried to enter the UK illegally.
Speaking alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, the prime minister said the plan would show that attempts to cross the Channel in small boats would “be in vain”.
He did not confirm how many people would be returned or accepted during the pilot.
Sir Keir said the pilot would help “break the model” of the people smugglers and would be ramped up if it was successful.
The migrants accepted by the UK would need to have a connection to Britain, such as a family tie.
In a statement released after the press conference, the government said the agreement would be signed “subject to completing prior legal scrutiny in full transparency and understanding with the Commission and EU Member states”.
Macron said the scheme would have a “deterrent effect” beyond the numbers returned.
He said Brexit had made it harder for the UK to tackle illegal migration, arguing that the British people were “sold a lie… which is that the problem was Europe”.
During the press conference, the two leaders also announced that their countries would:
- co-ordinate their nuclear deterrents
- strengthen collaboration on supercomputers and AI
- “speed up and accelerate” co-operation on anti-ship missiles.
Some details of the deal, including how the UK would decide who to accept and who to send back to France, remain unclear. There could also be legal challenges over the selection process.
Other EU countries – such as Spain and Italy – may have concerns that returned migrants could then be sent to them. Under EU rules, individuals sent back to France would have to claim asylum in the first European country they arrived in, often places bordering the Mediterranean Sea.
Announcing the pilot, Sir Keir said: “I know some people will still ask, why should we take anyone in – so let me address that directly.
“We accept genuine asylum seekers because it is right that we offer a haven to those in most dire need.
“But there is also something else, something more practical which is that we simply cannot solve a challenge like stopping the boats by acting alone and telling our allies that we won’t play ball.”
Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the deal would “only return one in every 17 illegal immigrants arriving”.
“Allowing 94% of illegal immigrants to stay will make no difference whatsoever and have no deterrent effect.”
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said the crossings are “a national security emergency”.
“Frankly the French owe us our money back,” he added, in a reference to payments made by the UK to support French policing efforts.
He said he did not believe the pilot would work, saying: “If we even try to deport people across the Channel, we will run straight into the European Convention on Human Rights.”
Labour and the previous Conservative governments have both struggled to stem the numbers coming to the UK in small boats.
The Conservatives had proposed sending arrivals to Rwanda, but the scheme was delayed by legal challenges. The general election was called before it could be implemented.
One of Sir Keir’s first acts as prime minister was to scrap the plan, calling it a gimmick.
He said his government would focus instead on tackling the smuggling gangs that organise the crossings.
Numbers continued to rise, with nearly 20,000 people arriving in the UK in the first half of this year – a 48% increase on the same time period in 2024. More than 170,000 people have arrived in small boats since figures were first recorded in 2018.