Another month, another "landmark" UK-France deal that will, ministers solemnly assure us, finally get to grips with the small boats. The latest version was signed on 23 April 2026. It promises expanded enforcement activity in northern France, bigger French patrols, more coordination, more cooperation. The press release was glossy. The accompanying photo opportunity was, as always, immaculate.

And the boats kept coming. 325 in a single day this month. Just shy of 200,000 crossings since 2018. Four people drowned in the Channel on 9 April alone. The bodies of children continue to wash up on French and English beaches. This is not a policy. It's a press release production line.

The Deals That Never End

We have done this dance before. Sandhurst Treaty. Le Touquet. Calais Group. The 2018 deal, the 2020 deal, the 2022 deal, the 2023 deal, the 2024 deal, and now the 2026 deal. Every single one was branded "landmark" at the moment of signing. Every single one was followed, within months, by a new annual record for crossings. The British public is being asked to believe that this time, despite identical terms and identical actors, something genuinely different will happen.

Forgive my scepticism, but I have constituents to face. The people of Preston East cannot understand - and I cannot defend - why a country with the world's fifth-largest economy cannot, twenty miles from its own shore, control who arrives on its beaches.

The Honesty Gap

Labour ministers will tell you the new deal includes "enhanced enforcement" - more boots on French sand, more interceptions, better intelligence sharing. All of it useful. None of it sufficient. The fundamental driver of small boat crossings is not the absence of French police. It is the presence of a UK asylum system that grants the vast majority of arrivals leave to remain. Until that pull factor is addressed, no enforcement deal will close the route. The economics simply do not work in Britain's favour.

The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 was supposed to fix this. It hasn't. The "visa brake" was supposed to fix it. It hasn't. The shorter refugee leave clause was supposed to fix it. It hasn't. We are now on year nine of a parade of legislation that has done nothing to bring numbers down.

Sixty Thousand "Returns" - But Not the Ones That Matter

The Home Office boasts of 60,000 "returns" since Labour took office, a 31% increase. Read the small print. The vast majority of those are voluntary departures, foreign offenders being deported on a normal cycle, and visa overstayers. The number of small boat arrivals actually returned to France or to their country of origin remains pitifully small. You cannot announce 60,000 returns in the same breath as 200,000 illegal crossings and call it progress. That is not maths. That is gaslighting.

What Reform UK Would Do

Reform UK's position has not changed because the truth has not changed. We would detain every illegal arrival, process them swiftly, and remove those without a valid claim - on the same day where possible. We would withdraw from the relevant clauses of the European Convention on Human Rights that prevent us doing so. We would pursue active removal agreements with safe third countries. And we would invest in proper detention capacity rather than handing British hotels over as four-star migrant accommodation at taxpayer expense.

The British people have been patient. They have endured a decade of broken promises from both major parties. The April 2026 UK-France deal is the latest in a long line. It will fail for the same reasons all the others failed. The only thing that will close this route is the political will to do so. Reform UK has it. Labour does not.