Officials had hoped the one-in-one-out deal would impact Channel crossings (Image: Getty)
Shabana Mahmood is scrambling to save the one-in-one-out migrant deal with France which has “floundered”, Border Force officers believe. French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez has told the Home Secretary that Paris does not want to renew the removals scheme when the trial ends in October.
It is potentially a huge blow for the Home Office, as it was becoming increasingly integral to removing the biggest cohorts of Channel migrants from the UK. And frontline officers believe Emmanuel Macron’s Government “won” because Britain has taken in more people than it has removed.
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Now insiders believe Mr Nunez’s preferred plan – for Andy Burnham to strike up a deal with the EU – will fail because of political chaos within the bloc.
A Border Force source told the Daily Express: “The idea of an EU-wide migrant distribution scheme has been floated before. It’s been batted about for 10 years.
“And it’s never succeeded because countries cannot agree how many they’re going to take.”
Asked if the agreement had impacted Channel migrant crossings at all, the official said: “No.
“If it has, it is absolutely minimal. It is true that the numbers coming by small boat are down. And that’s a great statistic for the government who like to parrot it a lot.
“What they don’t tie that to is the number of irregular migrants arriving through another route. So, our lorry drops.
“We certainly saw people come back. We knew we’d removed them under the “one in, one out”, and a week later they were back.
“The French weren’t doing anything with them, which, in fairness, they never said they would.
“The whole scheme just floundered.”
Britain has returned some 1,400 Channel migrants to France, which has sent a similar number of legitimate asylum seekers to the UK.
At this point, officials had been expecting to remove 200 migrants a week.
The officer said Labour had ignored warnings that human rights challenges and modern slavery claims would ground the majority of deportation flights.
They said: “They were always going to be the problem.
“The issue with this was refoulement. Nobody considered the asylum claim. We would simply have refouled them to France, and France would not have necessarily considered it themselves.”
Negotiations are underway between Britain and France on whether to renew the “one in, one out” deal, which is set to expire on Oct 1.
Shabana Mahmood and Laurent Nunez are struggling to agree a new deal (Image: Getty)
Ms Mahmood wants to make the arrangement permanent and increase the number of migrants being returned as a deterrent to further crossings.
But Mr Nunez has seemingly already ruled out the proposal.
And he wants Britain to negotiate a returns agreement with the EU. Such a proposal would see Labour accept more migrants from across Europe, in exchange for removing small boat arrivals.
Paris is said to have withdrawn support for the plan because immigration officials in France are struggling to deport those being returned from the UK.
Former Border Force Director General Tony Smith said: “France’s decision to end the one-in-one-out deal in favour of an EU wide deal on returns is destined to fail.
“I worked on various iterations of the Dublin Convention and although we were able to get some returns to Greece and Italy in the early days we never returned anybody to France because we couldn’t prove the migrants had entered the EU there.
“Up until Brexit, we ended up taking in more migrants than we ever returned under Dublin, which has now been replaced by the EU asylum pact.
“That is already struggling with some countries (like Poland and Hungary) who would prefer to pay fines rather than take migrants back from other EU countries.
“Although a safe third country returns deal with France for all boat arrivals offers our best chance of stopping the boats it’s clear that the current French government aren’t interested in it.
“The one-in-one-out deal might have worked if we returned everyone, and so wouldn’t have to take any in, but the numbers have been so small that there is no deterrent to others.
“Extra French patrols in and around Dunkirk and Calais have helped to reduce numbers but the smugglers won’t give up – they will just adapt their tactics to bring people over in bigger boats from further afield.
“Any new deal with the EU will inevitably just see us taking in more asylum seekers from other EU countries and won’t stop others from coming by boat anyway.”
On June 15, Mr Nuñez told a French parliamentary inquiry: “For our part, we want to move away from this bilateral relationship with the UK.
“We consider that France should not have to carry it alone, and that it would be better to integrate it into an agreement between the EU and UK.
“So I have already clearly told my counterpart that this pilot agreement, which we signed in August 2025, was not intended to be renewed beyond October 1, 2026.”
Asked whether an EU replacement could be ready by then, he added: “There is an action plan, there is interest, but it would be naive of me to tell you there will be a mechanism to bridge the gap.”
Andy Burnham dealt huge blow as Border Force insider eviscerates his France migrant deal
Andy Burnham’s government is facing renewed questions over its approach to Channel crossings after a Border Force source criticised the UK’s “one in, one out” migration arrangement with France, describing the scheme as having had little or no measurable effect on the overall flow of migrants.
The criticism comes at a particularly sensitive moment. The pilot agreement, introduced in August 2025, is due to expire on October 1, 2026, while French officials have indicated that Paris does not want simply to extend the existing bilateral arrangement. Instead, France has argued for a broader agreement involving the European Union.
For Burnham, who has made closer cooperation with European partners a central part of his approach to border security, the dispute creates a difficult policy problem. The government must demonstrate that cooperation with France can produce practical results while also dealing with the limits of the existing returns mechanism.
According to reporting by the Daily Express, a Border Force source argued that the “one in, one out” arrangement had not significantly affected Channel crossings. The source acknowledged that small-boat arrivals had fallen, but disputed the idea that the decline could automatically be attributed to the returns agreement.
The distinction is important because several different measures are operating simultaneously. The UK is funding French policing and intelligence operations, while the two governments are also targeting smuggling networks and trying to prevent boats from launching. The “one in, one out” mechanism is only one element of this wider strategy.
Under the pilot, some people who arrive in Britain by small boat can be returned to France, while an equivalent number of asylum seekers who have not attempted an unauthorised crossing can be transferred legally from France to the UK.
House of Commons Library research reported that, by early March 2026, 377 people had been returned to France while 380 people had arrived in Britain through the legal side of the scheme. The library noted that the relatively small scale of the pilot meant that commentators questioned how much influence it could have on overall migration trends.
Since then, the number of removals has increased. Reporting in September put the number returned to France at around 1,400. However, the same reporting highlighted concerns that some people returned under the scheme subsequently attempted to reach Britain again.
That is one of the central challenges facing the government. A returns agreement can only operate as a deterrent if potential Channel migrants believe that attempting the crossing could result in their removal. If people can return to France and subsequently make another attempt, the effect on the smuggling business may be considerably weaker.
The Border Force source cited by the Express claimed that officials had witnessed people being removed to France and then appearing again in Britain shortly afterwards. That is an allegation from an anonymous operational source rather than an independently established measurement of the entire scheme’s effectiveness, but it illustrates the practical difficulties faced by enforcement agencies.
France itself appears increasingly reluctant to continue the arrangement in its current form.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has reportedly argued that the bilateral system should eventually be replaced by an agreement between the UK and the European Union. In comments reported from a French parliamentary inquiry, Nuñez said France did not want to carry the burden of the arrangement alone and did not expect the existing pilot to continue beyond October 1.
At the same time, he acknowledged that an EU-wide replacement might not be ready by the time the bilateral scheme expires.
That creates a potentially significant gap. Britain wants a mechanism that allows small-boat arrivals to be returned, while France wants the issue treated as a broader European problem. Any EU-wide arrangement would require agreement among multiple governments with different migration policies and domestic political pressures.
Former Border Force director general Tony Smith has also questioned whether such a European mechanism would be straightforward. Speaking to the Express, Smith referred to his experience with earlier European returns arrangements and argued that previous systems had struggled to achieve large numbers of returns between countries.
His comments represent an expert assessment rather than proof that an EU-wide agreement cannot work. Nevertheless, they highlight one of the fundamental problems: migration returns depend not only on British policy but also on the willingness and legal ability of other countries to accept people back.
Meanwhile, the government has another argument in its favour: the number of small-boat crossings has fallen substantially during parts of 2026.
The House of Commons Library reported that 41,472 people arrived in Britain by small boat during 2025, the second-highest annual total since records began. It also noted that fewer people had arrived by small boat during the corresponding period of 2026. Officials attributed part of the reduction to disruption of smuggling supply chains across Europe.
The government has pointed specifically to its cooperation with France. In August, the Home Office said French authorities had prevented 185 small-boat crossing events between April 27 and August 2, representing 61 per cent of reported events during that period. The government said the operations included stopping launches, seizing equipment and arresting suspected smugglers.
In September, the government said joint UK-French work had prevented more than 48,000 crossing attempts since the last general election. Official figures also show that Britain provided France with €206 million in the 2025/26 financial year to support efforts against small-boat crossings.
These figures complicate any simple claim that the entire France strategy has failed.
The evidence suggests that increased French enforcement has had an operational effect. French authorities have disrupted launches, arrested suspected smugglers and intercepted some boats. In August, the Guardian reported that French maritime authorities had intervened against small boats at sea on 10 occasions since the spring, challenging claims that French police never intervene once boats enter the water.
But enforcement has also encouraged smugglers to change tactics.
Reports have documented departures from locations farther along the French coastline and from Belgium, while larger “mega-dinghies” have carried increasing numbers of people. This creates a familiar problem in border enforcement: restricting one route can push organised criminal networks towards another.
That means the decline in crossings should not automatically be interpreted as evidence that one particular policy has caused the reduction.
Burnham himself has acknowledged the changing nature of the challenge. Ahead of his September meeting with Emmanuel Macron, he said that smuggling gangs were adapting their tactics and argued that Britain and France needed to respond quickly.
The government subsequently announced additional French resources, including specialist teams targeting smuggling activity and expanded intelligence operations. Downing Street said the number of French officers dealing with crossings would rise to nearly 1,050.
The controversy over the returns deal therefore raises two separate questions.
The first is whether the “one in, one out” mechanism itself is large enough to influence the overall number of Channel crossings. Available evidence suggests that its scale has been relatively modest compared with the tens of thousands of people who have crossed in recent years.
The second is whether broader UK-French cooperation is producing results. Here, the evidence is more substantial. The two governments have committed hundreds of millions of pounds, increased personnel and expanded intelligence and surveillance operations. Official figures indicate significant numbers of launches have been disrupted.
The political difficulty for Burnham is that the public debate often treats these measures as one single policy.
If crossings fall, ministers can point to the wider French enforcement operation. If the returns scheme struggles, critics can argue that the central deterrence mechanism is ineffective. Both observations can coexist.
The coming weeks could therefore be decisive for the future of the agreement. France appears to favour an EU-level solution, while Britain has an interest in retaining a practical route for returning people who cross the Channel irregularly.
For Burnham, the challenge will be to secure a mechanism that works in operational terms rather than simply producing a diplomatic announcement.
The Border Force criticism has exposed the gap between policy ambition and implementation. But it does not establish that the wider UK-France strategy has failed. Nor does the fall in small-boat arrivals prove that the “one in, one out” system caused the decline.
What the evidence does show is that the migration problem is being shaped by several moving parts: French policing, British enforcement, organised-smuggling networks, asylum rules, returns arrangements and changing routes across the Channel.
With the current pilot approaching its October deadline, Burnham and his ministers face a straightforward test of policy design: whether they can turn cooperation with France into a sustainable system that disrupts criminal networks, manages returns lawfully and reduces dangerous Channel crossings without relying on a mechanism whose scale remains limited.