‘One in, one out’

Last week, while handing out tea in a razed field in Dunkirk, I was approached by an anxious father and his teenage daughter. They were looking to claim asylum in the UK, they said, but had heard rumours that the authorities were detaining people on the other side of the Channel. Could I tell them anything about the situation? On what basis were detentions being made? I explained to them that as an aid worker I couldn’t give legal advice, and did my best to point them towards a charity that could. They thanked me, but said it didn’t really matter. Conditions in Dunkirk were unbearable: whatever might happen to them in the UK, they would try to cross as soon as they could.

Under Labour’s ‘one in, one out’ policy, announced at Keir Starmer’s meeting with Emmanuel Macron last month, the British government will send back to France any asylum seekers who arrive in small boats, in ‘exchange’ for those who have applied legally. Nigel Farage has said that if Reform took power, they would deport every single ‘illegal migrant’ – in breach of British and international law. Charities and campaigners insist that the only way to stop people from making the perilous journey is to open safe and legal routes into the UK. The new policy was billed by the government as a ‘grown-up’ compromise: humanitarian but tough. It promises safe passage to a tightly controlled number of applicants (fifty per week, all of whom must have family already residing in the UK) while giving Border Force staff new powers to deport other arrivals.

You can’t apply to join family in the UK without a passport, so the option is unavailable for anyone who had to flee without one, or whose documents have been lost or destroyed. Aside from distributing a few leaflets, the government hasn’t communicated the new policy to those it is supposed to target, or indicated how applications will be processed. So far, it appears, no claims have been accepted. But videos of young men being detained have been set to upbeat music and posted to the Home Office’s social media channels, and the first deportations to France are scheduled for three weeks’ time.

When it was revealed earlier this month that the number of people who had reached the UK on small boats since Labour came to power in July 2024 had reached 50,000, the familiar circus of blame began. The Tories reproached Labour for scrapping the dismal Rwanda plan; Labour pointed to the legacy left by the Tories; Reform, as ever, reaped the spoils. But the tussle between the dominant parties over who can most bullishly ‘defend’ Britain’s borders is not only an ugly spectacle; it rests on a misguided premise.

For the ‘one in, one out’ scheme to work, it must deter refugees from crossing the Channel. None of the available data from the last five years suggests that this will happen. In the final months of the Sunak government – as the Tories’ rhetoric around small boats became more incendiary, police powers on the border were expanded, and the Rwanda plan staggered through the courts – the number of crossings continued to increase. But not because the ‘hostile environment’ was insufficiently hostile.

Among the many reasons for the fluctuations in numbers at the border, the most salient are weather and war. More than 2500 people have crossed the Channel this month, but that isn’t unusual for a dry August. In the last few months, the crises in Sudan, where 25 million people are facing famine, and Afghanistan, where more than half the population is thought to require humanitarian assistance, have intensified. Devastating ethnic conflicts continue in South Sudan and Eritrea. In Syria, years of civil war have given way to a fractious peace, and millions remain displaced. Most people who successfully claim asylum in the UK come from these countries.

If Labour really wanted to ‘smash the gangs’ and make the Channel a less deadly place, it would strengthen its commitments to funding humanitarian assistance and co-ordinate with other nations to welcome refugees from affected areas – as with the Ukraine Resettlement Scheme. Instead, it is slashing international aid budgets and transferring people across borders as if they were fungible commodities.

Since the ‘one in, one out’ scheme was announced, ever more aggressive protests have flared up outside asylum hotels across the UK. Starmer’s gambit has failed to placate the far right. The 36,000 people who arrived by small boat in 2024 are only a sliver of the million or so who move to the UK each year. But for those who imagine a nation besieged by ‘strangers’, the boats are a powerful symbol of ‘invasion’. In the scattered settlements around Calais and Dunkirk, meanwhile, people cling to a different picture: of the UK as a safe haven of religious tolerance and social cohesion. Britain spent a long time exporting this image to the rest of the world; it will not be easily erased.