Express viewers have suggested France’s “Rwanda Plan” is to dispatch its asylum seekers to British shores – after an Express investigation saw 13 boats cross the Channel over just three days. Britain secured a new agreement with France over returning migrants who arrive in small boats last week, with a deal struck for a one in, one out system that would see small boat migrants exchanged for legal asylum seekers.
It came after around 22,492 people arrived in the UK after crossing the English Channel this year, up 57% on the same time in 2024 and 71% higher than the year before that. Last week, the Express saw 13 boats carrying a total of 802 migrants successfully crossing the Channel over a three-day period in the immediate aftermath of the deal – and also observed numerous attempts by French police to enforce border security rules. “The French have their own Rwanda Plan… England,” one viewer commented on a video showing migrants attempting to illegally cross into Britain.
“France should be made to pay that money back, they’ve done nothing to stop these people, they should be ashamed,” another person said, seemingly referring to a previous deal signed by the UK agreeing on providing £480m for additional border patron and surveillance equipment.
A third commented: “Why doesn’t the UK protect its own borders, water and land?”
Labour scrapped the Conservative Party’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda while their claims are processed, with the Prime Minister claiming that the scheme was “dead and buried before it even started”.
However, migrants boarding inflatable kayaks in Calais laughed off questions about whether the new UK-France deal posed a deterrent to them and pledged to “try anyway”.
Over 350 migrants crossed the Channel on Friday, according to Home Office figures, the day after Keir Starmer signed the deal with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron.
Home Seecretary Yvette Cooper said the government would co-operate with other governments to tackle the migration problem rather than “standing at the shoreline shouting at the sea”.
“We will best strengthen our border security by working with countries on the other side of those borders who face exactly the same challenges far better than just standing at the shoreline shouting at the sea.”