PAThe home secretary has said the new “one in, one out” migrant scheme agreed with France on Thursday is “robust” enough to withstand potential legal challenges.
Yvette Cooper said she had been in close contact with European governments which have expressed concerns about the deal, saying that the European Union had been “very supportive and helpful”.
She told BBC Breakfast the government had done “a lot of work to make sure that the system is robust to legal challenges”, which stymied the previous government’s efforts to deport some illegal migrants to Rwanda.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp described the plan to return an expected 50 migrants a week to France as a “gimmick”.
Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron signed a deal on Thursday which will see the UK return migrants who arrive in small boats back to France.
The scheme – which will initially run as a pilot – proposes that for each migrant the UK returns, Britain will accept another who has made a legal claim in France, which both countries say will act as a deterrent.
Cooper would not be drawn on how many migrants would be exchanged under the deal, though it is expected the pilot will involve around 50 people a week.
She said the government would “provide updates” on figures as the pilot progressed.
The home secretary said the pilot scheme would be accompanied by a plan to target those working illegally in the UK, which she said was a pull factor driving small boat crossings.
ReutersAsked what would happen if a migrant who is returned to France attempts to cross the Channel a second time, she said they would be “returned again” and banned from the UK asylum system.
Philp dismissed the plan as “another gimmick” that will allow the majority of illegal migrants to remain in the UK, and said Labour’s pledge to “smash the gangs” had not worked.
He said the Rwanda scheme originally proposed by Boris Johnson would have seen “100% of illegal arrivals being removed” and described Sir Keir’s decision to axe the plan as a “catastrophic” mistake.
Cooper said only four migrants had ever been sent to Rwanda and on a voluntary basis, and described the previous government’s approach to migration as “chaos”.
Since 2018, when figures began to be gathered, more than 170,000 people have arrived in the UK in small boats.
Numbers this year have reached record levels with nearly 20,000 arriving in the first six months of 2025.
On Thursday, Macron said the scheme would have a “deterrent effect” beyond the numbers returned, and suggested Brexit had made it harder for the UK to tackle illegal migration.
