Tory plans to revoke indefinite leave to remain in pursuit of greater ‘cultural coherence’ resemble the most extreme ambitions of far-right fringe parties
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t is too early to declare Sir Keir Starmer’s “one in, one out” migration deal with France a failure, but nor can the government claim that it is working as intended. This week, the Guardian revealed that one of the first people deported under the treaty had found his way back to the UK via a small boat. On the same day, Home Office data revealed that the number of people who had made the journey so far this year – 36,886 – had surpassed the total for 2024. The usual partisan recriminations followed. Opposition parties accuse Labour of failing to grip the problem; ministers say they are burdened by a long legacy of Conservative mismanagement. Both things can be true.
For all its deficiencies, Sir Keir’s deal with France recognises two facts that his Tory and Reform UK opponents cannot accept. First, engagement with EU states is a sine qua non of functional migration policy. Second, without some legal mechanism for accepting refugees, desperate people will always gamble on the illegal ways.
Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage are too committed to vilification – casting France as the enemy and refugees as criminals – to engage with those propositions. They refuse to acknowledge the humanity of people who put their lives at risk to enter Britain illegally. Worse, they have policies to undermine the position of millions of people who have settled in the country by legal means.
