Labour told us the UK-France "one-in-one-out" scheme would change the dynamic of small boat crossings. They sold it as a tough new deal. They briefed it as the answer to the Channel. The numbers, six months in, tell a different story. 305 people returned to France. 367 brought into Britain in exchange. That is not a one-in-one-out scheme. That is a net inflow. The flagship Home Office policy is, on its own data, making the problem fractionally worse.

The Pilot That Wasn't Meant To Be Public

You will not have read about these figures across the front pages of the broadsheets, because Labour are doing everything in their power to bury them. The pilot launched in 2025. The agreed framework was simple: the UK could send back to France people who arrived by small boat, after declaring their asylum claims inadmissible, and in exchange would accept an "equivalent number" of asylum seekers from France who hadn't tried to cross. The pilot period runs until 11 June 2026.

The Home Office quietly confirmed in February that, as of early February 2026, 305 people had been returned to France and 367 had been received by the UK. The maths is not difficult. The British state has imported 62 more asylum seekers under the pilot than it has exported. We have spent political capital, diplomatic time and Home Office resources on a scheme that is, in net terms, increasing the number of asylum seekers in Britain rather than reducing it.

The Channel Has Not Been Stopped

And while this elaborate exchange has been running, the small boats have continued to come. Approximately 2,200 people crossed the Channel in the first two months of 2026 alone. The cumulative total since 2018 has now surpassed 199,000 people. The deterrent effect that Labour kept promising has not materialised. The scheme is too small to register as a deterrent. Even at full operational tempo it would only return a tiny fraction of arrivals — and at the cost of accepting an equal number of new claimants.

This is what happens when policy is written for the press release rather than for the problem. The Conservatives left office with the small boats out of control. Labour came in promising to "smash the gangs" and end the crisis. Eighteen months later, the gangs are intact, the crossings are continuing, the asylum hotel bill has hit £15.3 billion, and the government's flagship deterrent has produced a net inflow.

France Is Not Our Friend in This

The fundamental problem with any UK-France scheme is that France has no genuine incentive to stop the boats. Every migrant who reaches Britain is one fewer for France to deal with. Successive French governments have made the right noises in public and done very little in practice. The new pilot has not changed that calculus. Why would it? We are paying France hundreds of millions of pounds — more than half a billion since 2014 — and the boats keep coming.

The architects of the scheme appear to have believed that France would prioritise British concerns over French political reality. That was naive. President Macron has his own electorate to manage. He has no interest in being seen to absorb migrants Britain doesn't want, especially as Marine Le Pen breathes down his neck. The pilot was always going to be small, slow and grudging. Labour signed up to it anyway, then briefed it as a breakthrough.

What Reform UK Would Do

Reform UK has been clear and consistent. The only deterrent that works is a credible policy of removal. That means: anyone who arrives illegally is detained on arrival, processed quickly, and removed — to a third country if necessary, to their country of origin where possible. It means leaving the European Convention on Human Rights so that British judges, not Strasbourg, decide who stays. It means treating the small boats as the national security and border integrity issue they are, not as a press management problem.

The "one-in-one-out" scheme is a microcosm of Labour's entire approach: cosmetic, complicated, and counterproductive. You cannot end a border crisis with a pilot scheme that imports more people than it exports. The voters know this. The Home Office knows this. Only the Cabinet, it seems, is still pretending otherwise.