Labour’s ‘one in, one out’ deal with France will take 300 years to deport all small boat migrants who have come to Britain since the election, a new report says.
Since Sir Keir Starmer became Prime Minister last July 59,976 migrants have arrived here illegally across the Channel.
But only 42 have been removed since the agreement with president Emmanuel Macron’s government came into force in July.
Migration Watch UK, which campaigns for tougher border controls, calculated it amounted to a removal rate of about 0.55 migrants per day.
As a result it would take 297 years, at the same rate, to remove all 59,976 to have come under Labour, the group said.
Deportations would be complete in the year 2322.
Channel small boat migrants disembark from a UK Border Force vessel at Dover earlier this month
Migration Watch chairman, Alp Mehmet, said: ‘This is not a legacy to look back on with pride, Prime Minister.
‘Moreover, if we receive one migrant back for each one we return, we will have the same number plus new arrivals to fend for.
‘The public have had enough of fibs and bluster.’
Sir Keir scrapped the Tories’ Rwanda asylum policy as one of his first acts in office.
The Rwanda deal was designed to deter Channel crossings and save lives by sending migrants on a one-way ticket to the east African nation to claim asylum there rather than here.
Last week the Government’s £200,000-a-year border security commander admitted a solution to the Channel small boats crisis ‘isn’t going to happen very quickly’.
Martin Hewitt, who was appointed to the role a year ago, told MPs he was ‘frustrated’ by rising number of arrivals.
As Mr Hewitt set out his attempts to crack down on people traffickers, he said: ‘This was always going to take time.’
He also confirmed the Home Office is still waiting for the French to finalise new maritime rules – first announced in the summer – that will allow their officers to intercept dinghies once they are already in the sea.
A new ‘maritime doctrine’ is being developed by the French but is still going through ‘legal processes’, he told the home affairs select committee.
It was confirmed in June that the French were planning to allow its officers to block small boat departures within 300 metres of the shoreline.
Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK, said deporting all arrivals under Labour would take 300 years at current rates
But Mr Hewitt said: ‘We are awaiting that to be deployed.
‘They are having to work through various legal processes to ensure that officers are properly covered.’
The number of migrants crossing the Channel has soared past 187,000 since the start of the crisis – including more than 36,000 so far this year, up a third on the same point in 2024.
This year’s tally is close to overtaking the total reached in the whole of last year.
Apart from the 42 deported under the ‘one in, one out’ treaty, 23 migrants have arrived from France under the scheme.
