Yvette Cooper was torn apart by BBC Breakfast’s John Kay this morning as she was accused of negotiating a dud migrant deal with France. The Government’s recently-announced returns agreement with Macron comes into force today, meaning some migrants who cross the Channel will be immediately detained and sent back to France.
However despite hopes by Labour they could secure a one-in-one-out treaty with the French, it’s believed just 50 migrants per week will be sent back over the Channel after arriving illegally. This morning Ms Cooper, the Home Secretary, was called out on the numbers, while she refused to admit the numbers set to be returned are pitifully low. Mr Kay pointed out: “Last week, 1,355 people came across the Channel in small boats, in which case that’s not ‘one-in-one-out’, it’s ’26-in-one-out’.
“Can you understand that people are going to take some convincing that this policy is going to work and it’s really going to make a difference?”
The top minister insisted that the principle behind the returns deal are right and what the UK “should be pursuing”.
“People who are arriving on small boats should frankly be returned to France. They’re coming on illegal boats, they’re paying thousands of pounds to criminal people smugglers. That money should be lost and they should be returned.
“And also the principle that where we take people from other countries, we should do so through a legal process, where people have gone through security checks.
“So those are the right principles to establish. And bear in mind, this has never happened with France before. We have never had this in place throughout the six years that this small boat chaos has been continuing.
“So I think it’s right that we establish that. We do know that the Greece-Turkey agreements were brought in 2015 and 2016. that only operated for a short period of time, but actually had quite a big impact as well. And also, look, we have never claimed that there is a single silver bullet on this.”
Mr Kay also appeared infuriated by the Home Secretary’s refusal to admit how many migrants will be returned per week.
He exclaimed: “I don’t understand why giving out a number, even just an ambition of a number at this early stage would affect the smuggling gangs and put them off doing the job or increasing their job?”
Ms Cooper insisted the criminal gangs would use operational information about the new treaty in order to fuel and improve their own people smuggling operations.
She told BBC Breakfast viewers: “We’ve seen them do that continually over different through the years. And we’ve also seen them just exploit any rules they can, for example, one of the reasons we’ve had particular problems this year is because they’ve been deliberately exploiting the French rules, which mean up until now, France has not been intervening in French waters, in shallow waters, and so therefore, the boats have been loading up in shallow waters.
“Now, that is changing now as a result of the agreement that we have with France, so France will be able to take action in French waters, but it’s just a good example of any information that’s provided.
“The criminal gangs use that to operationalise, they use that as part of their advertising. But we will provide regular updates, so people will be able to see the numbers that are being returned, they will be able to see the numbers of people who are being detained as we go through this programme.”