Will the UK-France Deal Stop the Boats?

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00:00So, Jono, this is a really big story in Europe.

00:04We can't, you know, deny that immigration is a hot topic when we look across European countries.

00:10But over 25,000 people have crossed the channel this year to date alone.

00:17That's 49% higher than last year in 2024.

00:22I mean, will this scheme, they've tried so many,

00:25will this scheme actually stop the boats or help the migration issue?

00:30It's very unlikely to stop the boats.

00:31What we're seeing currently is, I think, a direct result of this Franco-Anglian relationship

00:36that's been reignited and somewhat of a middle ground to try and seem like something has been done

00:42about the migration project, the migration problem.

00:45However, what we're also seeing is this one-in-one-out, which is such a bizarre pilot scheme.

00:5150 people a week will be sent to France.

00:52The cap on this, 2,600 people a year.

00:56Given that 25,436 people have made that crossing so far this year,

01:01that really doesn't even touch the side of the numbers that need to be sent to wherever they need to go.

01:08But it's an unusual project in that what we're seeing is we're going to see asylum seekers

01:13brought from France to the UK and sent back will be people who are there as illegal immigrants.

01:18What you now have to take into consideration, what the British public are concerned about,

01:22is where has the cost been saved?

01:24Because one of the main reasons, and certainly going into government,

01:28when Keir Starmer went into government, he said he would stop the boats.

01:31We are now quite a long stint into his tenure in number 10 in Downing Street,

01:37and we haven't seen the results just yet.

01:39The one-in-one-out policy is taking somebody who's costing the UK 15,000,

01:4410,000 to 15,000 British pounds per year, and sending them to France.

01:48And instead, we're now going to bring somebody in who's an asylum seeker costing 20,000 to 40,000 pounds per year

01:53and letting them become a problem in the country.

01:55Is this solving the problem? Absolutely not.

01:57The deficit in the budget is already so astronomical that the UK doing this is likely to just even widen that gap further again.

02:04So I think people in the UK are rightly annoyed and rightly thinking,

02:08where's the win for us on this one?

02:10Because it certainly won't stop the boats here and now,

02:12because that's a smuggler issue that is far more deep-rooted.

02:15It will be a stepping stone, and I would hope that in the next 12 months we'll see something even greater than that again.

02:20But by the time those 12 months have gone by, or six months have gone by,

02:23if another 25,000 come in, we'll now have a seven- to eight-year backlog on a one-in-one-out policy,

02:29which clearly won't work.