Home secretary says both issues are being addressed as ‘one in, one out’ pilot scheme with France begins
Good morning. Keir Starmer has invested a lot of effort in measures that will “smash the gangs” and today the government is announcing the start of one of his big achievements in this area – a returns agreement, of sorts, with France. It is only a pilot, and the numbers are likely to be small, but the Conservatives never negotiated a deal of this kind when they were trying to stop small boat arrivals. (In fact, as a result of Brexit, they achieved the opposite.) Here is Jessica Elgot’s story about the deal.
And here is the Home Office news release.
Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has been speaking to broadcasters this morning. In media interviews, some politicians are keen to go on the offensive, by opening up new arguments or lines of attack. Cooper is the ultimate defensive player, smothering all awkward questions with splurge of officious, technocratic reasonableness. Journalists find it frustrating, because she tends to be a bit boring, but government spin doctors are happy because she never messes up.
When Starmer and Emmanuel Macron announced the “one in, one out” pilot last month, details about how it would work were sketchy. In her interviews this morning, Cooper did not reveal anything new about how the scheme would operate, arguing that, if she were to release this information, that might help the people smugglers evade the new regime. It has been widely reported that the scheme will start with about 50 people being removed per week, but Cooper would not even confirm this. On numbers, she told the Today programme:
