Starmer's migrant deal with Macron is a promising start

The prime minister has been criticised for the modesty of the agreement that he has secured with the French president on cross-Channel migration.

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He should instead be congratulated for having obtained a returns deal at all. It is more than his Conservative predecessors managed, and it is certainly more than Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform and peddler of “simple” solutions, could do, according to The Independent.

The modesty of the arrangement is sensible. Returning undocumented migrants is a complex matter, legally and logistically. It is a good idea to show “proof of concept”, as government sources put it, on a small scale, to show that it would be possible with larger numbers. The pilot scheme has already been attacked by the Conservatives on the grounds that it would not be a deterrent. If Britain is able to return 50 people a week to France, that would amount to a small fraction, about 5 per cent, of the numbers currently arriving by small boat.