'One-in, one-out' migrant deal with France on brink of collapse - 'It's over!'

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Sep 30, 2026 - 00:40

'One-in, one-out' migrant deal with France on brink of collapse - 'It's over!'

Shabana Mahmood's "one in, one out" migrant deal is on the verge of collapse, with one senior French immigration official declaring it "over" already.

Flights taking small boat migrants back to France will carry on until the end of October before the contentious deal comes to an end.

British officials are understood to be scrambling to keep the deal alive amid claims it has deterred illegal migrants from breaking into Britain.

The senior French source told The Telegraph: “I’ve been told that the end date has been pushed back to the end of October, but that the one to one programme is still set to end then, and that between now and then, there’ll be one flight, maybe two."

But the official said President Emmanuel Macron has "made it quite clear" to Andy Burnham that the agreement would be scrapped at the end of next month.

They added: "France has been asking for it to be a European agreement from the start, but, as far as I understand, the other countries don’t want it.”

Earlier this month, French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told the Home Secretary that Paris wanted to end the bilateral arrangement.

Under the French proposal, the existing scheme would instead be replaced by an EU-wide agreement covering all 27 member states.

Britain would be able to return migrants who cross the Channel to Europe, but would be forced to accept asylum seekers with legitimate claims from across the bloc in exchange.

Mr Burnham is believed to have made a last-ditch appeal to his French counterpart to keep the deal in place during the pair's face-to-face talks in London.

Senior Labour figures have called for the scheme to be ramped up to act as a strong deterrent for illegal crossings, but Paris has insisted it was a limited "pilot agreement".

In June, the French Interior Minister acknowledged that while the scheme did serve as a possible deterrent, France did not want to shoulder the burden alone.

Mr Nunez said: “According to information from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, word of the scheme is beginning to spread, which is prompting a number of migrants to abandon their plans to make the crossing

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“The value of this scheme is therefore clear. Nevertheless, we consider that France should not bear the burden alone, and that it would be better to incorporate it into an agreement between the EU and the UK.

“I have therefore already made it clear to my counterpart that this pilot agreement, which we signed in August 2025, was not intended to be extended beyond October 1, 2026.”

Any EU-wide replacement could dramatically expand the number of countries involved in deciding where migrants are returned and from where asylum seekers are accepted.

But southern European countries which receive large numbers of migrants arriving at the bloc's external borders - like Italy or Greece - are believed to be concerned they could shoulder a disproportionate share of people returned from Britain.

The European Commission previously indicated it will not agree to the proposal until a compromise between member states can be reached.

Government sources refused to comment on the senior French immigration official's remarks when asked by The Telegraph, but they insisted that talks were still ongoing to keep the scheme alive.

Earlier this month, Labour admitted that the “one-in, one-out“ deal costs £56,000 per migrant, after previously denying a request from GB News to reveal exactly that.

Ms Mahmood confirmed the cost per migrant to the Home Affairs Committee.

Since the scheme with France was launched last summer, 1,400 migrants have been sent back across the Channel.

Including detention, security and legal costs, on top of the costs of removing each migrant, the grand total in a year has reached £78million.

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