Ex-Director General of UK Border Force Tony Smith has cast huge doubt over plans for a new deal with France, claiming he has "no confidence in any deal" done to tackle the migrant crisis.
Speaking to GB News, Smith told host Martin Daubney that he has a "sense of depression hanging" over him, and warned Labour of "selling themselves down the river".
Under the potential new "one in, one out" scheme, Channel migrants would be sent back to France within weeks of their arrival in return for the UK taking asylum seekers from France.
Home Office sources told The Telegraph that the plans were a "work in progress".
Tony Smith has hit out at Government plans for a 'one in, one out' migrant deal with France
GB News / PA
Delivering his verdict on the potential new agreement, Smith told GB News: "I suppose I should be running around the room punching the air that we've got a result here.
"I spent a lot of my career trying to do a deal with the French on asylum returns, and ever since the boats started, I've been advocating for it, but we've never got one before."
He added: "This isn't new, we've had this before where we'd do some kind of deal with them and it's always gone wrong. I'm afraid I'm not confident in any deal.
"We haven't seen the detail yet. I may be doing a disservice, but my worry is that we've got this big summit coming up this week, and there's desperate political pressure upon them to come up with some kind of an announcement because they're getting beaten up all over the place. So we might just end up selling ourselves down the river here."
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PACasting doubt on the logistics of returning asylum seekers back to France, Smith asked: "As for the returns, I don't even know how it's going to work. Are we going to be able to put them on a Border Force vessel and sail them straight back into Calais? All of them straight away?
"Or what happens when the lawyers get involved when in our waters? Or what happens if we bring them ashore in Dover? There's going to be exceptions, so I'm afraid I'm not running around punching the air."
He stated: "In fact, I've got a sense of that depression hanging over me, waiting to see what exactly it is that we've done here.
"I am a little bit worried that we might be actually making things worse than better, but I just hope I'm wrong."
Smith told GB News that he is 'not optimistic' for the deal
GB News
Delivering his scathing conclusion on the proposed plans, Smith expressed his concern for what benefits the French will receive in accepting this deal.
Smith concluded: "I am not optimistic, I'm afraid. If we haven't been able to get a deal all these years now, what is it that suddenly happened? Suddenly we've got this fantastic new agreement, what's in it for the French?
"Why would they suddenly start saying, 'we'll take the boat people' when they haven't for the last eight years. And even before that, I can tell you, even when I was doing it with the lorry jobs, they weren't taking them back then either, and we haven't had a deal since the agreement back in the 90s.
"So I'm sorry, but I'm a little bit worried about this, I really am. I want to see the detail of it, but as we speak, not optimistic."
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