09/07/2025 08:31
The Guardian
UK prime minister to face Kemi Badenoch in the Commons before talks with french presidentGood morning. Yesterday Emmanuel Macron, the French president, enjoyed the best ceremonial aspects of his state visit – being hosted at Windsor Castle, addressing MPs and peers in the Royal Gallery at parliament, a state banquet. But today he is getting down to proper talks with Keir Starmer and, although they are expected to agree some new measures relating to curbing the number of small boats crossing the Channel, there are signs that the final deal might not be as wide-ranging as the UK government might have liked.In their story about Macron’s address to parliament, Kiran Stacey and Morgan Ofori report:The British government has been hoping to use the trip to show that its “EU reset” had borne fruit, including on the traditionally difficult subject of migration.British officials have been hoping to sign a new deal that would involve Britain accepting asylum seekers who have a genuine family connection with the UK in return for being able to send others back to France. However, they had warned in recent days that it might not be ready in time for this trip.The Telegraph understands that Mr Macron wants Sir Keir to crack down on the UK’s black market for labour and welfare payments and make family reunification for genuine asylum seekers easier as conditions for the deal.An Elysée source warned that Mr Macron expected measures “addressing the root causes of the factors that attract people to the United Kingdom”, adding: “These causes must also be addressed by the British.”Thomas-Symonds insisted that the UK is already addressing the “pull factors” affecting small boat crossings. Asked about Macron’s supposed views, as set out in the Telegraph splash, he told the Today programme:Addressing pull factors is exactly what we have been doing. That is why there’s been over 7,000 arrests here in the United Kingdom dealing with things like, for example, illegal working which this government has been cracking down on.He claimed that policy was moving “in the right direction” on small boats. The number of crossings is at a record level for this time of year. But Thomas-Symonds told Today the numbers would have been even higher if it had not been for action taken by the British and the French. He said:We have prevented, working together with the French authorities, and indeed beyond across Europe, 12,000 people from crossing the Channel who otherwise would have done.We have seized 600 boats that otherwise would be being used in the channel.Preventing 12,000 people from crossing is most definitely something that is in the right direction …To your point about numbers, we’ve seen, yes, over 21,000 have crossed so far this year. There was a 10-week period in 2022 when we had 20,000 people who crossed in that intense period.He claimed that cooperation with the French was already paying off. He said:We obviously want to see, in the bilateral relationship with France, which is crucial, but also around Europe, more people smugglers being arrested. We want to see more people prevented from attempting that dangerous crossing, more prosecutions of people smugglers.And you do that by deepening your intelligence sharing. That’s what we’re doing in Dunkirk, for example. I’ve been down to Dover, I’ve been across to France, I’ve literally seen this work happening, and it yields results. Just the last couple of weeks, we saw nine people in Lille sentenced nine people to 64 years in total for people smuggling offences. That’s work between our National Crime Agency and the French authorities.And he rejected claims that, by abandoning the Tories’ Rwanda policy, the government had removed the deterrent for people tempted to cross the channel. When it was put to him that there was no deterrent, he replied:Sorry, but we do have a deterrent, and the deterrent has been the 30,000 people who’ve been removed by this government who have no right to be here.Knowing and having that in place, that people who have no right to be here will be deported, is a far more effective deterrent than spending £700m pounds on a gimmick that sent four volunteers to Rwanda. Continue reading...
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