Given Britain’s reputation for producing peerless comedy programmes, we’ve given the French plenty to laugh about over the years. But even icons like Mr Bean or Fawlty Towers — or, rather L’Hôtel en folie — can’t hold a candle to the latest British farce. Only this time it isn’t comedy but rather a comedy of errors. From the UK’s failed reciprocal immigration policies with France to the Government selling out our fishing industry by allowing EU boats to trawl UK waters for another 12 years. To the French this country has become one big fat joke. And with such a bottomless supply of material there’s no need to change the channel — literally.
Take Labour’s trumpeted “one-in, one-out” policy. What was billed as a pioneering way to tackle small boats (returning undocumented migrants to France in exchange for those with UK family ties) is looking increasingly pointless. A gimmicky cloakroom-ticket approach to a serious crisis. Could there be a worse punchline?
How Paris must be chuckling at the way this so-called pioneering scheme has descended into a spaghetti mess of red tape and court rulings. In terms of a misfire it’s quite le spectacle.
Several of the first migrants who were due to be sent back to France under the swap deal have had their removal delayed after legal action. While at the High Court a detained asylum seeker has successfully argued against his planned expulsion.
Indeed deportation flights have left the country without any migrants on board. (Quite the wheeze given Starmer’s first move in power was to rip up the Illegal Migration Act, and scrap the Rwanda deterrent plan)
Comic effect, of course, depends on the audience seeing what the players cannot. But Keir Starmer — given he is a human rights expert — should have foreseen the banana skin waiting to send flying attempts to remove those who arrived illegally.
Numerous asylum seekers are already said to have submitted letters to the Home Office explaining why they should not be returned to France, forcing officials to cancel flights and deportation notices.
Retrospect is adding to the belly flops and belly laughs. At the launch of the one in and one out plan Starmer declared with great flourish that the ‘ground-breaking’ pilot scheme would ‘prove the concept that if you come over by small boats, then you will be returned to France’.
Good line — hysterical in fact — given the disparity between proclamation and reality. (Starmer’s particular Basil Fawlty characteristic.)
After all, once illegal immigrants leave French shores, they are no longer a problem for that country. Despite the fact they are quitting a place of safety French border guards have shown little enthusiasm to prevent their departure. Once in the water the interception of migrant boats has largely become the responsibility of the British.
The figures of course are no joke. Since Labour came to power, 44,359 small-boat migrants have reached Dover, including 21,117 so far this year — a 50% leap on the same period last year.
Indeed far from smashing the gangs, 2025 so far has been the worst year in history for illegal immigrants crossing the channel. (Not forgetting the human tragedy of those who meet their end crossing the water in this dangerous way).
This then is the heart of the side show we are gifting to our continental cousins. Britain, as it appears to the French, is a country where we talk a lot and do little.
It’s probably why French fishermen continue to break the territorial 12-mile rule aimed at preventing foreign fishing vessels operating in UK waters. Filling their boots or rather boats with catches that should be sustaining our domestic fishing industry.
Until firm action is taken — such as immediate deportation for all illegal immigrants, and effective policing of our fishing waters — loud promises will continue to be supplanted by weak enforcement. And slapstick Britain will continue to make the French laugh.