By Chas Newkey-Burden
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today’s big question
Will Keir Starmer’s ‘one in, one out’ France deal be a success?
Two people have been removed under the migrant-exchange scheme this week
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A flight is expected to bring the deal’s first asylum seekers from France to the UK tomorrow
(Image credit: Illustration by Stephen Kelly / Shutterstock / Getty Images)
Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK
19 September 2025
An Eritrean has become the second person removed under the government’s “one in, one out” migration deal with France, giving a boost to Keir Starmer’s immigration plans after an initial setback.
A last-minute court bid to delay the departure failed after the Home Office tightened rules around human trafficking claims, and his exit comes “as a relief” to the government as it faces pressure on small boats, said Jamie Grierson in The Guardian.
What did the commentators say?
Labour was “repeatedly warned” that the European Convention on Human Rights would prove a “massive stumbling block”, said David Barrett in the Daily Mail and, before the successful removals, the government faced two days of “delicious human rights humiliation” and “disarray” as flights left with no migrants aboard.
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
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There are “still major doubts” over whether the arrangement can be “implemented on the scale needed” to deter the crossings, said Matt Dathan in The Times. A flight is expected to bring the deal’s first asylum seekers from France to the UK tomorrow, and ministers are “braced” for the numbers on board to be “larger than those deported the other way”.
But there are “key factors” that could work in the government’s favour, wrote Danny Shaw on The Spectator, including that France is regarded as a “safe” country, in contrast to Rwanda, which the UK Supreme Court ruled was “not a safe place for migrants”, putting paid to the Tory government’s bid to deport migrants there.
Starmer’s scheme is “likely to command broad public and political support”, but it could come undone if the process of requesting transfer to Britain from France is “seen to be smooth and swift”, which would act “as a magnet” for refugees to apply, while reciprocal returns become “gummed up”.
At “first glance”, the deal “appears to shift away from hostile immigration enforcement” to a “measured, cooperative approach”, said the charity Right To Remain, but the “details reveal a far more limited ambition” of 50 legal admissions per week in exchange for 50 removals. So, “even if fully implemented”, the policy would “cover only a small fraction of the people making the journey”.
The government wants people to see the scheme as “part of a wider plan” that includes imposing sanctions on those accused of involvement in people smuggling and “clamping down” on migrants who work illegally, said Emma Batha on Context.
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More departure flights are planned in the coming days but it’s “not clear” how many passengers will be on board because of legal challenges and “threats” of more court action, said Dominic Casciani, the BBC’s home and legal correspondent.
Meanwhile, the numbers show the scale of the challenge: the scheme has some 100 men in UK immigration removal centres but around 5,590 migrants have reached the UK since the arrangement began in August, and more than 31,000 migrants have crossed to England so far in 2025.
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Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK
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Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.
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