A bombshell new report tears apart Sir Keir Starmer's "one in, one out" migrant deal, concluding that it is a lame duck.
The damning analysis comes after record numbers crossed the English Channel within days of the agreement with France taking effect.
The plan proposes that for each migrant the UK returns to France, another migrant with a strong case for asylum in Britain will come the other way.
However, as GB News' Home Office Editor Mark White recently wrote in his weekly column Migration Watch, the reality is more like 'the vast majority of small boat migrants in, a handful out'.
Now, in an eight-point takedown, Stand for Our Sovereignty, in association with GB News, outlines the fatal flaws that undermine the pilot scheme, from the one-week notice period to suspend the agreement to the cost to the British taxpayer.
1. Unrealistic deadlines
Analysis of the legal text shows that illegal migrants crossing from France will have to be processed by Britain and all documentation required by the French must be provided to them within 14 days of the migrant landing, which could be a tight deadline for the Home Office.
France has up to 28 days to respond to any request and if none is received it shall be considered a refusal. If it does agree, the process for each migrant to be deported is expected to take up to three months.
2. Binds the UK to the ECHR and other international treaties
The UK must adhere to international law, "including the European Convention on Human Rights and the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees of July 28, 1951, and its 1967 Protocol as well as the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings”.
If Britain leaves or derogates from any parts of the ECHR or other international agreements, it seems it will be game over. In addition, EU law takes precedence over this agreement.
3. Returns
All returns are to be made by air. On landing in France, British officers may not use force to take a reluctant migrant off the plane. If they just sit there, there is nothing they can do.
Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed to the 'one in, one out deal' last month
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In the event of any UK court order being announced after the migrant has been deported, the UK must arrange to take him back.
4. UK taxpayer pays all French costs
All legal costs in either country to be borne by Britain. The UK is responsible for all its own transfer and other costs (including flights) and is also responsible for all French costs.
In short, the UK taxpayer will pay every French bill the other side can think of, whether any migrants are ever successfully returned or not. The UK taxpayer will also pay for the flights bringing Macron’s "exchange migrants" to the UK.
More than 28,000 people have crossed the English Channel in small boats so far this year
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5. Excludes various types of migrant
The agreement does not apply to a migrant who makes any form of protection or human rights claim on arrival in the UK.
This will exclude all illegal migrants from this Treaty, unless the claim is quickly deemed "inadmissible" by the Home Office. Ironically, only illegal migrants who are "inadmissible" from the British perspective will be admissible for consideration by the French.
The problem for the Home Office
In the whole of Sir Keir Starmer's first 12 months in office, only 57 inadmissibility notices were served, according to Stand for Our Sovereignty citing Home Office records.
Even taking the number the Home Office considered declaring inadmissible, this was a small proportion of the total: 2,216 in the last quarter to June 2025.
It does not apply those who may pose a “threat to public order or national security” or anyone who entered the UK “more than 14 calendar days prior to the date of the readmission request”.
It therefore does not apply to the 175,000 whom have already been allowed to cross from France and have entered the UK.
Protests continue outside hotels housing asylum seekers as many call to 'stop the boats'
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It also doesn't apply to migrants where the Home Office can't process their claim in under two weeks, or to any unaccompanied migrant to be under 18.
It does not apply except in periods when the UK has taken more migrants from France than vice versa. Therefore, if France is slow in sending migrants across, the UK will have to wait.
It does not apply to a migrant if the UK has not done security checks on them. France can also refuse a request if the migrant fails France’s "security checks similar to those carried out when applying for a visa or a residence permit on individuals and if France considers that an individual would be a threat to public policy, internal security, public health or the international relations of any of the Schengen States”.
Britain can however refuse migrants from France that it had already sent back under this agreement.
659 migrants crossed the Channel on Bank Holiday Monday
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6. Onerous process
The UK’s "readmission application" to France must include “the particulars of unmarried children and/or Partners”, together with biometric data including a photograph and fingerprints, and all "proofs" of all the conditions specified.
The conditions are lengthy and French are likely to require every "i" dotted and every "t" crossed.
7. How many?
It does not apply if the overall capped number of migrants has been exceeded. So there is no minimum, or rather there is none that has been There is, however, a maximum, but apparently that maximum cannot be disclosed either.
8. Suspension and termination
Either party can suspend the agreement with one week’s notice and terminate it with one month’s notice.
France may review or amend the agreement if it does not like " the actions taken by the United Kingdom to tackle illegal working and strengthen law enforcement so as to reduce the pull factors that drive irregular flows towards it”.
Mr Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron announced the agreement at the end of July, and it came into force earlier this month.
It was signed by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau.
Speaking to GB News, Stand for Our Sovereignty’s Chairman said: "Having analysed the legal text, we know exactly what to tell the illegal migrants so that not a single one of them is ever eligible to be taken back.
"Yvette Cooper said she would not reveal the target number of returns for security reasons, in order not to give the people smuggling gangs any advantage. Ridiculous and irrelevant.
"What she should have done is blacked out Macron’s conditions in the Treaty.
“If we now know how to make it easy to avoid deportation under this agreement, you can be sure the gangs do too, and therefore so will the illegal migrants.”