An experienced French border police officer has dealt a huge blow to Keir Starmer's one-in, one-out migrant deal with France, saying he believes it will fail.
Major Nicolas Laroye, an illegal migration specialist based in Dunkirk said the deal won't make a difference.
“It is going to be ineffective, it won’t change anything,” the main representative at the UNSA Police Union said.
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He told The Express the new measures would complicate matters for those attempting to cross the Channel, however, it would not deter them.
"What we've done for years is make it harder for migrants and massively increase our equipment and manpower," Mr Laroye said.
"But they have never stopped trying to come to Britain."
Mr Laroye said he had been in the Border Force since 2008 and he had "seen so many people try again and again because this is their 'El Dorado'."
Migrants crossing the channel on a small boat
| GETTYThe comments come after the Prime Minister signed a deal with his counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, in a bid to deal with the migrant crisis.
The deal was signed in June and hailed as "unprecedented".
It came into effect last month and the pilot scheme aims at sending back migrants who have made the crossing back to France in exchange for an approved asylum seeker.
Mr Laroye was sceptical of claims it would deter migrants.
Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron | REUTERSHe said the migrants have attempted the illegal trip throughout his time as a officer.
"We don't have the stats since the new deal," Mr Laroye said.
"It's too early to say how many might have continued to try (coming to the UK after being returned to France)."
He added that "when people are caught trying to cross on ferries and in the Channel Tunnel, it is the policy that they are always returned to France and processed".
"I know in these cases we'd catch people repeatedly trying to cross," Mr Laroye said.
"Often I'd catch the same person three or four. Once I stopped seeing them, I assumed they had managed to reach the Uk.
"I don't have a doubt that those returned under the new deal will continue to try and come to Britain by small boat. I've seen it with my own eyes."
Mr Laroye added that the existing policy of not accepting small boat returns was only in place because of a technicality which related to an agreement signed between UK and France in the 1990s around illegal migration.
"Before the deal, the only reason France refused to accept migrant returns was because it couldn't be proved that a small boat had come from our shores," he said.
Government data has shown that the number of migrants travelling to Britain by small boats had passed 50,000 since Labour had assumed office last year.