𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Is that it? The culmination of 12-months of “cooperation rather than conflict” with the French, as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer described it to me earlier this year? The reward, in part, for more than £725 million we have sent the way of Paris over the last few years? A “ground-breaking” deal “that is the first of its kind anywhere” as Home Secretary Yvette Cooper called it last week?

In reality, Le Big Deal for one in, one out is nothing less than one big con. It is performative drivel and as robust as most of the death trap dinghies that set out to cross the channel from France. To keep the sea-faring metaphor going, the scheme to send one illegal migrant arriving in Britain back to France in return for an asylum seeker deemed to have a legitimate claim was holed below the waterline the moment it was launched.

A decent and motivated woman, Ms. Cooper did not emerge well from her time on the bridge trying to steer it through various media interviews.

She couldn’t say precisely when the deportations would begin, nor how many there would be. Nor could she give an idea on what the ultimate desired number per week would be.

It would start, possibly, at 50 – but when you remember 875 migrants arrived on ONE DAY alone late last month, it’s not unfair to view the potential impact as risible.

The biggest torpedo though came 24 hours after the treaty came into effect. A close study of the terms showed migrants will still be able to block any proposed deportation by relying on that well-used ruse, human rights laws.

Claiming conversion to Christianity from Islam for instance would suffice, as they could then argue they feared persecution in some Muslim countries.

In addition, France can legitimately reject the return if “it considers that an individual would be a threat to public policy, internal security, public health or the international relations of any of the Schengen states.”

This deal has more holes than a Swiss cheese and is as robust as England’s tail order batting against India at The Oval.

While no easy solution beckons, actions that could have an effect are fighting for a reformed European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), stopping the “pull factor” of Britain being seen as an Eldorado and establishing offshore return hubs in other countries, perhaps in Eastern Europe.

No, it won’t be plain sailing – but any of those measures would hold more water than this sinking dud.