Azeem Ibrahim: Why we must suspend all immigration cooperation with France

Hundreds of millions of pounds have been poured into French patrols, surveillance, and fencing, all in the hope that Paris would take responsibility for our border. And yet, the boats keep coming. The reason is not French incompetence. It is French indifference.

France is under no political, legal or moral obligation to police its beaches for Britain’s benefit. The thousands of migrants camped around Calais and Dunkirk are not trying to enter France. They are trying to leave it. From the French perspective, every successful crossing reduces pressure on their own overstretched housing, welfare, and asylum systems. Stopping the boats is not their priority. Why would they commit resources to a mission that benefits us and burdens them?

We keep pretending this arrangement can work, but the evidence tells a different story. The UK has already spent over £700 million funding French operations since 2018, yet last year alone some 37,000 people arrived across the Channel. This year’s numbers are running ahead of that pace, with more than 25,000 arrivals recorded by the end of July. The dinghies still launch almost daily. The smuggling networks still adapt faster than the authorities. The crossings continue because the incentives remain.

And unlike drugs or weapons, people cannot be confiscated or destroyed. They are determined, resourceful, and often desperate. If stopped one day, they try again the next. Without a clear, immovable obstacle, the flow will not end. That obstacle must be an absolute deterrent. Anyone arriving illegally in Britain must know with 100 per cent certainty they will be removed, without exception. Not most of the time. Not after years of appeals. Not only if they are single, or over 18, or from a particular list of countries. Everyone. Because if even a small percentage are allowed to stay, the smugglers will seize on those examples to sell hope to the next boatload.

This is why half measures fail. Starmer’s newly announced “one in, one out” policy, under which for every illegal migrant deported the UK will admit one genuine refugee through official routes, is the very definition of a half measure. It has already come into effect, but it will make almost no difference. The weekly deportation target is around 50 people. That is a drop in the ocean compared to the thousands arriving each month.

This imbalance ensures the perception in migrant camps will not change, and perception is everything. Smugglers will tell their clients: the odds are still in your favour, because the system cannot remove most people who arrive. That message will travel faster than any government press release.

If we applied a genuine zero tolerance policy for just two weeks, consistently and publicly, the crossings would slow, and then stop. The smugglers’ business model relies entirely on selling hope. Remove that hope, and it collapses. Word would spread back to the camps and the communities they draw from: the journey no longer pays.

Only then could we rebuild an asylum system worthy of the name. One that reflects Britain’s values of fairness and compassion, not chaos and exploitation. One that prioritises the truly vulnerable, people fleeing genocide, sexual violence, or societal collapse. People without £10,000 to hand to a trafficker. People like the young women from Tigray or Sudan who have survived unspeakable violence, who have no family, no money, and no access to smuggling routes. What hope do they have of reaching safety in the current system? None.

Meanwhile, the people arriving by small boat today are, in the overwhelming majority, young men of military age, drawn largely from countries such as Albania, Afghanistan, Iran, and Eritrea. Many have the physical resilience, mobility, and financial means to cross continents and pay smugglers thousands of euros. That is not a moral judgment. It is simply the structural reality of a system that rewards the strongest and most connected, rather than the most desperate.

A just immigration policy does not work this way. It must balance compassion with control, ensuring that those who genuinely need protection can get it without rewarding those who bypass the rules. This is why public confidence has collapsed. The British people see a border that appears open to anyone who can reach it. They hear promises of action from successive governments, yet the numbers keep rising. They see billions spent on deals with France and wonder why nothing changes. And they are right to ask.

Instead of pouring more money into a French system that neither shares our objectives nor benefits from our success, we should suspend all bilateral immigration cooperation and take back full control of our enforcement. That means developing the capacity to intercept and return illegal arrivals ourselves, without relying on foreign governments whose incentives are misaligned with ours.

This approach would restore order and fairness. It would reassure the public that compassion is not being exploited by criminals. And it would remove the dangerous, deadly incentive to cross the Channel in small boats, an incentive that last year claimed at least 73 lives.

We know what does not work: funding French patrols, relying on political goodwill from Paris, and tinkering with policies that leave the odds in the smugglers’ favour. We also know what will work: absolute deterrence, clear enforcement, and a moral commitment to prioritise the truly vulnerable.

That is what true compassion looks like. That is what real control looks like. And that is what the British public rightly expects from any government that claims to be serious about fixing this broken system.

Dr Azeem Ibrahim OBE is Senior Director at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington DC and author of Authoritarian Century: Omens of a Post Liberal Future