The Home Office has detected 199,406 migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats since 2018. As of 2 May 2026, the number is still climbing. And the government's response? Hand £662 million of British taxpayers' money to France, and call it a victory.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood signed the new three-year deal with Paris last week. It pays for specialist French riot police, drones and surveillance kit on the French side of the Channel. It is the third such deal in five years. Each one promises a breakthrough. Each one delivers another record-breaking summer of small boats.

Paying France Has Never Worked

This is not a new policy. It is the same policy. In 2023 we paid France £476 million. In 2025 we paid France £541 million. Crossings went up. Now, in 2026, we are paying £662 million. Crossings are on track to rise again.

The French interior ministry has every incentive to take the cheque, look busy, and move smugglers further up the coast. They do not solve the problem because they do not want to solve the problem. Britain is paying a foreign government to manage a crisis that British politicians refuse to confront. That is not border control. That is paying protection money.

The "One In, One Out" Pilot Has Already Failed

Buried in the small print is the so-called returns pilot. The UK sends a small-boat arrival back to France, and in return accepts an asylum seeker who has not crossed the Channel. As of February 2026, the Home Office reported 305 returned to France and 367 received from France. We are running a net loss on our own borders. The pilot expires on 11 June 2026 and there is no replacement.

This is what happens when a government will say anything to look tough on immigration but will not actually take the decisions that would stop the boats. It signs deals it knows will fail because the deals make for better headlines than honest policy.

The Border Security Act Has Made No Difference

Last December, Parliament passed the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025. It was sold as the legislation that would finally smash the smuggling gangs. Five months in, crossings are at record levels, the first prosecution under the Act has only just landed, and the Act has done nothing to deter a single dinghy from leaving Calais.

Labour's so-called temporary asylum status, where successful claimants must wait up to 30 years for settlement, was billed as a deterrent. It is not deterring anyone. The smugglers know exactly what every policy wonk in Whitehall knows: once you are on British soil, you are not going home. Until that changes, no amount of French police will make a difference.

What Reform UK Would Do

Reform UK's plan is the only credible plan on the table. We would withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights insofar as it prevents the removal of illegal arrivals. We would detain everyone who arrives illegally pending immediate removal to a third country or back to France. We would end the use of asylum hotels. And we would stop sending hundreds of millions of pounds to Paris in exchange for nothing.

The British people have been patient. They have watched government after government promise to control the border and fail. They have seen the price tag rise from hundreds of millions to billions a year. Two days from a national election, the message is unambiguous: only Reform UK is serious about taking the country's borders back.