Migrant returns deal Rejected Tory proposal that became a Labour coup

Starmer should stop telling people what a success he was making of running the country. He was only adding to the pull factors

- Kiran Stacey Jessica Elgot

Rishi Sunak prepared to meet Emmanuel Macron in March 2023, his migration minister wrote to him with some radical proposals that might persuade the French to crack down on small boat crossings. "We should be willing to make highly meaningful concessions such as offering to take one asylum seeker that has been successfully granted asylum in the French system in return for one illegal migrant that we return to them," wrote Robert Jenrick, now the shadow justice secretary.

"Or indeed more than one," he continued. "It is probable that the certainty of return to France would quickly break the business model of the smugglers."

Yesterday, his advice was heeded, but by Keir Starmer rather than the prime minister Jenrick served. By agreeing a migrant returns deal with France - albeit a limited pilot on an uncertain timescale - this prime minister has achieved something successive Conservative ministers attempted but failed.