In today’s newsletter, we explore the collapse of the UK’s ‘one in, one out’ asylum deal with France, which exposes the limits of border enforcement that did little to stop crossings and only made them more dangerous.

Good morning. You’d be forgiven for missing it. Earlier this month, the government quietly scrapped its “one in, one out” deal with France. The partnership was supposed to eliminate small boat crossings by deterring asylum seekers from making the treacherous journey across the world’s busiest shipping channel. The deal, which lasted just 423 days, was beset with problems, had a negligible impact, and now joins a long list of policies that have tried and failed to address highly visible, often tragic small boat crossings.

This morning, the Home Office announced that it would be doubling the number of riot police along the French coast in lieu of the deal. Although small boat arrivals have actually decreased over the last year, the far right continues to weaponise these crossings. In its annual threat briefing yesterday, the head of MI5 warned that extremists with anti-immigration opinions are increasingly considering carrying out terrorist attacks.

Context

Today’s newsletter speaks to specialist reporter Diane Taylor and Daniel Trilling, author of If We Tolerate This, to situate the deal’s collapse within the wider context of policies that have exacerbated the sense of disorder they’re supposed to resolve – and asks what comes next.

UK News

  • Extremists holding anti-immigration opinions are becoming increasingly likely to consider carrying out terrorist attacks against immigration centres and asylum hotels, the head of MI5 has warned.
  • Nigel Farage has denied that a Reform UK government would authorise lethal force against small boat crossings in the Channel.
  • Andy Burnham will host Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Downing Street on Wednesday as the UK seeks to further underline its support for the Ukrainian president, in contrast to his difficulties with Donald Trump.
  • Kimberly Guilfoyle is stepping down as US ambassador to Greece after weeks of reports that she sought payment from a Trump donor in exchange for access to administration officials.
  • Pope Leo XIV has lung cancer, the Vatican said late on Tuesday.

The One In, One Out Policy

The one in, one out policy that was announced in a joint press conference between Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron in July last year was supposed to render small boat crossings pointless. A person arriving in a small boat to the UK could be forcibly returned to France in exchange for another person who would be brought legally to the UK.

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“In effect,” Diane Taylor wrote in a moving piece about the scheme in September, asylum seekers were “used as reluctant human shields to protect our borders from others in the same predicament.”

The scheme was always limited in scale; of the 40,000 people who arrived in small boats while it was active, just 1,500 – roughly 4% – were returned to France. A report by British Future, a thinktank that championed the policy, recognised that it would have to be expanded twenty-fold to close down routes as a viable way to claim asylum. But it’s doubtful that, even at this far larger scale, it would have ever been effective.