Dover MP 'confident' over UK-France migrant deal

The new migrant scheme which will see an expected 50 migrants a week returned to France is both more "humane" and "immediate", the MP for Dover and Deal has said.

A "one in, one out" deal agreed by the UK and French governments on Thursday proposes that for each migrant the UK returns, Britain will accept another who has made a legal claim in France.

The scheme has been criticised by politicians including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp, who argue its impact will be minimal.

Dover and Deal MP Mike Tapp disagrees with this, and claims that "it will work".

He said: "If this goes well, the more of a deterrent it will deliver... but obviously that takes time, and we've got to get this working first, and I'm really confident we will."

Responding to Philp's assertion that this deal would only return one in every 17 migrants arriving, Tapp said the scheme is aimed at "chipping away and breaking that smuggling gangs model".

"If you're a car dealer, and one in 17 of the vehicles you're selling are dodgy... your business model is going to start breaking down," he said.

While more than 170,000 people have arrived in the UK in small boats since 2018, nearly 20,000 of those were recorded in the first six months of this year.

These record numbers have informed the governments' desire to do a deal.

Tapp believes this is also a more "humane" approach to the scrapped Rwanda deal where "you'd deport four [people] for £700m... to a nation with questionable human rights and a one-way ticket".

He also stressed that any migrants who attempt to come back to Britain after being returned to France "won't be eligible on any asylum claims".

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