A new deal struck between the UK and France to curb the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats has been announced. It involves the UK paying £8 million more to France to increase surveillance and enforcement, mainly on the French coast.
The increase in irregular crossings by sea – over 40,000 so far in 2022 – has really only been observed in the last few years. There were only 300 people reported in 2018, for example.
A regulation that was dropped in the wake of Brexit allowed the UK to return some asylum seekers to other EU member states without considering their asylum claims. Post-Brexit, the UK can no longer rely on this mechanism to send asylum seekers back to other EU countries. This arrangement ended when the UK left the EU in 2020. So, is this increase a “Brexit-made policy failure”? And is the additional £8 million in funding another example of Brexit-related costs to the UK?
