‘We’re being taken for suckers’: Tory anger at Rishi Sunak’s £480m migrant deal with the French
Conservative MPs have questioned the decision to send France nearly half a billion pounds to help the country stop asylum seekers ahead of a Budget which is set to see the financial squeeze on Britain continue for another year.
Rishi Sunak insists the deal, which includes a new detention centre in France for migrants caught trying to get to Britain in dangerous small boats, would help cut the number of crossings and prove a “sensible investment”.
Mr Sunak visited Paris on Friday for the first Franco-British Summit in five years, talking to Mr Macron one-on-one for more than an hour as the two leaders finalised a string of announcements, including enhanced co-operation on the Channel boats crisis.
They revealed Britain would pay €541m (£480m) over three years towards the costs of policing the border, including setting up a detention centre near Dunkerque where illegal migrants can be held before being sent back to their home country, or to the last safe country they travelled through on their way to France.
British officials will also be stationed permanently in France as part of a new “zonal co-ordination centre” designed to bring together different branches of French and British law enforcement. But Mr Macron has not agreed that France will accept migrants whose asylum claims in the UK are rejected, arguing that only an EU-wide deal would be effective.
Several Conservative MPs complained about the cost of the deal, which comes five days before the Budget is expected to confirm an ongoing squeeze on public spending in the UK. Ex-minister Tim Loughton told i: “We can continue throwing more money, more kit and more joint intelligence and preferably even more joint patrols on the beaches, but all the time the French refuse to arrest them when they intercept them – so they just intercept the same people the following night with a new boat.”
Jonathan Gullis added: “People understandably have major concerns about such a large sum, whilst in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis.” And a former Cabinet minister said: “At a time when we are asking the country to tighten their belts on the one hand, on the other we are forking out serious money to a Western country that can well afford to spend it themselves. We are being taken for suckers by the French.”
The French Government is spending around five times as much as the British on the scheme, according to UK Government sources.
Amnesty International attacked the “heartless anti-refugee measures that simply seek to absolve the UK from any responsibility at all”.
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper added: “Rishi Sunak has failed to secure a strong enough agreement with France to deal with the dangerous boat crossings. He has failed to get a returns agreement in place and it looks like his planned new law will make it even harder to get that vital agreement with Europe.”
As well as the migration deal, Mr Sunak and Mr Macron agreed to co-operate more closely on defence and energy policy, including by building more electricity interconnectors under the Channel.
The two leaders offered each other warm words at a press conference after their hour-plus conversation which took place with no officials present, a format favoured by Mr Macron but highly unusual in British diplomacy.
The President said: “It is a moment of reunion, of reconnection and of a new beginning.” The Prime Minister responded by praising Mr Macron’s response to the death of Elizabeth II – adding: “I’ve learned very quickly in this job that there are some things you can control and some things you can’t. And one thing you can’t control is who you get as an international counterpart. I feel very fortunate to be serving alongside you and incredibly excited about the future we can build together. Merci, mon ami.”
The men are of roughly a similar age and both come from a background of working in finance – but when Mr Sunak came to power, they first had to rebuild a shattered relationship which had suffered during the Johnson and Truss years.
Mr Macron and Boris Johnson got on well when they first met – including their own extended one-on-one meeting – but over time they fell out dramatically, especially when the UK accused the EU of trying to hoard supplies of Covid-19 vaccines in early 2021. “One of the calls during vaccine wars was the most ill-tempered call I’ve ever heard,” a source said.
Nonetheless they did manage to make some progress on the migration, even coming close to an agreement to put British “boots on the ground” with Border Force officials patrolling alongside their French counterparts – but that idea was scuppered when Liz Truss said she was unsure whether Mr Macron was “friend or foe” during the Tory leadership campaign, i understands.
When Mr Sunak took over, his team was forced to scale back its demands on migration. A No 10 source said they did not even bother asking for a returns agreement because they knew it would not be granted. After they chatted about rugby over vegetarian sushi in Paris, the two leaders may be closer to a refresh of the Entente Cordiale – even though Mr Macron’s insistence that they need to “fix the consequences of the Brexit” may not endear him to all Conservatives.
