Nigel Farage has signed a deal with the National Rally (Image: Getty)
Nigel Farage will pay France to deport migrants intercepted by the Royal Navy in the Channel.
National Rally has vowed to accept illegal migrants detected in the Channel if Marine Le Pen wins the next election.
And the Reform UK leader, under a new agreement, agreed: “The UK will intercept boats which have launched from French shores and entered British territorial waters and will return the persons on board to France.
“France will ordinarily accept these persons, who will be repatriated to their home country in accordance with the law in force in France concerning expulsion”.
It adds: “Both countries recognise the need to establish immediately a mechanism for assessing the full costs of bilateral border protection agreements, on a jointly defined basis. This mechanism will ensure that these costs are shared equitably each year.”
Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage MP said: “This is a momentous agreement and shows that both Reform UK and the National Rally are serious about stopping the illegal migrant invasion, fixing our borders, and putting our own people first.”
President of the National Rally Jordan Bardella, in an exclusive interview with the Daily Express, blamed the chaos in the Channel on Emmanuel Macron and the EU’s open borders scheme.
The migrant crisis has fractured confidence in London and Paris (Image: Getty)
He declared that the Schengen Zone means Britain’s border effectively starts at the French frontier with Italy.
Mr Bardella said Mr Farage – if he wins the next election – would not need to deploy the Royal Navy to intercept dinghies carrying dozens – sometimes hundreds – of people because Marine Le Pen will overhaul French immigration laws to prevent people arriving in Calais if she wins the 2027 Presidential race.
“What I am saying is that if France protects its borders, the Royal Navy won’t need to be deployed in the Channel, because there will no longer be incoming illegal migrants in the Pas-de-Calais region.
“It’s very simple.
“If we want to solve the crisis—and potentially the costs associated with managing the crisis on the ground in Pas-de-Calais for the British – France must regain control of its immigration policy.
“If we come to power with Marine Le Pen, we will hold a referendum on immigration with constitutional status.
“This will reaffirm the primacy of French law over all European and international jurisprudence regarding the fight against immigration, and we will put in place the entire legal, political, administrative, and deterrent shield to prevent France from finding itself with an influx of migrants who then naturally move toward the north of the country, specifically Pas-de-Calais bound for the British coast.
“It’s very simple: if France protects its borders, the Calais issue no longer exists.”
Under Reform’s plan, Royal Marines will be ordered to dump migrants back on French beaches if Paris refuses to take them. The party warned the Elysee Palace that it will have no choice but to accept those detected in dinghies.
Reform said it would set up a joint military command with units from the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, RAF and British Army as well as surveillance.
It said the navy’s River-class offshore patrol vessels would be used for interception.
The ships’ current responsibilities include monitoring Russian naval activity around British waters.
And Mr Bardella told the Reform UK conference: “The English Channel must no longer be a migration route to Dover or Folkestone, where thousands of people risk their lives in the hands of criminal smuggling gangs, with the complicity of the Left.
We must put an end to this deadly route. We must break the smugglers ’business model. And together, we must take back control of our borders. If we win, our government’s immigration policy will be simple: You do not enter France simply because you have decided to. You enter France because France has allowed you to.”
Reform UK’s home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf said: “When those smuggler boats cross into that twelve-mile territorial line in the English Channel, the occupants will no longer look up to see a Border Force ferry service waiting to chauffeur them to a life of state-funded leisure.
“No. Under Reform, they will look up and see HMS Dauntless waiting for them at maximum readiness. And every single person attempting to reach our shores illegally will be detained, and returned to the shores from which they came. Britain’s borders will mean something again.
“We will deploy the Royal Navy to stop the boats and return anyone attempting to cross back to France. We will go from having open borders, to the most secure borders on earth. We will launch the largest mass deportation operation in modern history, removing every single foreign national who entered this country illegally.”