New Deal, New Record

Is another French Deal going to stop surging illegal immigration? I doubt it.

Good afternoon and welcome back to Heaver News! I hope you all are well.

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A Big French Deal?

The leading news today of course is that Rishi Sunak’s Government have done another deal with the French.

Before I get to that, let’s consider the scale of illegal immigration that has continued just this weekend.

Saturday saw 972 people cross from France on 22 boats. Sunday then saw a further 853 people cross on 26 boats.

We are now well over 40,000 people having crossed from France to England on small boats this year. The outrageous 2021 record of more than 28,000 crossings has already been smashed.

This illustrates a basic fundamental point: that since the previous deals done with the French, crossings have continued to increase not decrease.

Close to a year ago exactly, on 16th November 2021, then Home Secretary Priti Patel and France’s Interior Minister issued a joint statement. Part of it read:

“Both the Home Secretary and Interior Minister agreed to strengthen operational cooperation further. More must be done to stop the dangerous crossings.

“They agreed to accelerate the delivery of the commitments made in the joint agreement of July 2021 to deliver on their joint determination to prevent 100% of crossings and make this deadly route unviable.”

Despite huge British funding handed to the French authorities, illegal immigration has since surged rather than being stopped.

The idea put forward a year ago that such UK-France agreements could “prevent 100% of crossings” or make the route “unviable” has proven to be laughable.

Will this new deal make a bigger impact? I’m simply not convinced.