Sir Keir Starmer’s vaunted migrant deal with French President Emmanuel Macron makes a joke out of the UK and Brexit. This isn’t simply bellyaching. The one-in-one-out policy announced – whereby Britain returns each failed small boat migrant for someone deemed to have arrived “by a safe route, controlled and legal” – strikes at the heart of British sovereignty.
For starters, the French make the decision about whether the migrants they send Britain have indeed come into Europe legally. Then, any attempt by the Brits to chuck people out will be met with the full force of the human rights lobby back home.
Don’t think old Manu misspoke when he talked up the disaster of Brexit in the PM’s face. The French President wants the UK back in the EU. What’s the betting the new EU migrant pact – the one focused on sharing the burden of illegal immigrants, but which Hungary and Poland opposed – is signed up to by this Labour government?
It will be sold as a way of ‘managing’ the migrant situation. In reality however, it would help soothe the fears of Italy and Spain, who fear they will be forced to take in more failed migrants heading to Britain, while locking the UK back into the EU fold.
Nigel Farage is right. Ditching the European Convention on Human Rights is the first real step to fixing all this. But even then it requires a cultural change. Hungary and Poland are also signatories to the ECHR but there is no army of lawyers challenging the government when they chuck folks out in those countries.
Why is it a country like Singapore doesn’t have small boat crossings from nearby Malaysia and Indonesia? Because everyone knows Singapore wouldn’t stand for this crap and would simply turn illegal immigrants right back around. Ditto Japan and Taiwan, if either received small boat crossings from the nearby Philippines.
So, no, Sir Keir’s deal is not only not worth the paper it’s written on, but undermines British sovereignty, while opening the door to further integration with the EU. Hovering somewhere between ineffective and downright dangerous, this is a solution which solves nothing and probably makes matters worse.