Macron and the EU will never accept Starmer's small boats plan
In yet another episode of the predictable farce, the European Union looks set to torpedo Sir Keir Starmer’s much-trumpeted “Channel migrant deal”.
What a surprise. Are we expected to believe that the EU, still stung by Brexit and mired in its own migrant chaos, will generously open its arms to a burden-sharing arrangement with Brexit Britain? The insult is not merely in the failure – it is in the expectation that we would be too dim to notice.
That failure is not just a technical one, it is foundational. This is what drives the small boats crisis. It is not the absence of good intentions, nor even resources, but the absence of the one thing that matters: deterrence.
No returns, no deterrence. No deterrence, no border.
It’s the hypocrisy that stuns. Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper used to revel in lambasting Conservative governments for their apparent diplomatic ineptitude. They promised grown-up government, adult conversations, renewed diplomacy.
And yet, here we are. Another Franco-British summit looms – a ritualistic farce in which handshakes are exchanged, British taxpayer cash is sent to France, and nothing of substance shifts. We are assured of “enhanced co-operation,” the sharing of intelligence, joint patrols, aerial surveillance. And then, as night follows day, the boats will come.
I’ve sat in those rooms. I’ve faced my French counterpart and asked the obvious question: why not intercept the boats on your shores? The French position has been consistent, and it is not subtle: jamais.
And that’s the part Labour never understood – or worse, pretended not to.
The fantasy that Sir Keir would somehow negotiate a miraculous deal with Europe belongs in the same file as his ill-fated “agreement” with Albanian prime minister Edi Rama in May. Who could forget it? A glossy press conference where Starmer declared that “return hubs” would be established in Albania to accept asylum seekers from the UK, only for Rama, with diplomatic elegance and devastating clarity, to rule out any such plan. Starmer had brought a press release. Rama brought reality.
Neither the French, nor the EU, nor any other European state has any real incentive to help Britain solve the boats crisis. They are dealing with their own migrant influx, their own populist pressures, their own fragile political coalitions. Why would Macron take on more asylum seekers to help the British?
To the French electorate, such a deal looks like capitulation. To Brussels, it smacks of Brexit back channels.
Which is why the Rwanda scheme was conceptually sound. It introduced the one ingredient that no other policy had dared to: consequence. The deterrent effect, if allowed to function, would have been significant. Because unlike the EU, Rwanda was willing.
Under Labour, Britain stands alone. That is the price of Starmer’s weakness. The sound bites and press releases may be many. The strong words and the stern brows rehearsed. The millions spent. But the truth is undeniable: Starmer’s migrant deal has never been a deal at all. It is a mirage. A diplomatic platitude wrapped in the language of serious government. And as with all such illusions, it reveals a deeper contempt: for the truth, for diplomacy, and for the intelligence of the British public.
We deserve better than this. Not just better ideas, but better honesty.
0 Comments