David Cameron: Deal to send migrants back to France ‘simply not possible’

A migrant returns agreement with France to help break up smuggling gangs and stop people making the perilous journey across the Channel is “simply not possible”, the Foreign Secretary has said.

Lord Cameron said “the situation we’re in” means a deal in place when he was Prime Minister to send migrants back to France when they landed in Britain is “not possible”.

It comes as Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda Bill, aimed at blocking further setbacks to the Government’s controversial deportation scheme, passed through Parliament this week following months of wrangling between MPs and peers.

Asked whether he would have pursued the policy while he was PM, Lord Cameron told ITV’s Peston show: “We had a totally different situation because (we) could return people directly to France.

“Now, I’d love that situation to be the case again, that’s the most sensible thing.

“People land on a beach in Kent, you take them straight back to France, you therefore break the model of the people smugglers.

“That’s not available at the moment. It’s simply not possible.”

Asked whether this was because of Brexit, he said: "Because of the situation we're in, because of the attitude of others and all the rest of it."

Lord Cameron added that leaving the European Convention on Human Rights is not “necessary” to prevent small boat crossings, amid Tory divisions over the UK’s membership in the treaty.

Mr Sunak has hinted he would be willing to leave the ECHR if it prevented him from getting planes off the ground and to Kigali.

It comes after five people, including a seven-year-old girl, died while while trying to cross the English Channel yesterday.

French officials said the victims were trying to get to Britain on an overloaded boat carrying more than 100 migrants.

Almost 30,000 people came to the UK in small boats last year.

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps today insisted that the Rwanda Bill will help stop migrants attempting the perilous journey.

Asked why the threat of being sent to the African nation would stop the crossings when people are willing to risk their lives to come to the UK, he told Sky News: “If already significant risks are not a deterrent then the thing that will be a deterrent is, even if you come here, not being able to stay here.”

He added: “We have to break these criminal gangs.”