A “nationwide blitz” will target migrants working illegally, as part of the effort to deter people from seeking to reach the UK from France.
Ministers hope to tackle the “pull factors” attracting migrants to the UK alongside the deal struck by Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron to send some people who reach England in small boats straight back to France.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said there had already been a “major surge in immigration enforcement activity” but officials have indicated that will be further increased in illegal working “hotspots”.
Ms Cooper said: “This new pilot agreement with France is extremely important and allows us for the first time to return people who have paid to travel here illegally, and will sit alongside our wider joint enforcement action, including disrupting supply chains to seize boats and engines, shutting down social media accounts, and targeting finances.
“Since last summer, we have returned over 30,000 people with no right to be in the UK and a major surge in immigration enforcement activity, with a 51% increase in the number of illegal working arrests.”
The one in, one out migrant return scheme set out by the Prime Minister and Mr Macron, which still needs final legal verification and consultation with the European Union, is due to begin within weeks.
Under the pilot scheme, for each small boat migrant sent back across the English Channel an asylum seeker will be allowed to enter the UK from France under a legal route.
No details have been given about how many people will be covered by the pilot, but reports from France have indicated it could initially be limited to about 50 a week – a small fraction of the weekly average this year of 782.
The Prime Minister and Mr Macron, who said Brexit had made it harder to deal with illegal migration, hope the deal will have a deterrent effect beyond the limited numbers involved in the trial period.
Sir Keir set out the plan alongside Mr Macron on Thursday at the conclusion of the French president’s state visit.
The Prime Minister acknowledged it was not a “silver bullet” but that it would mean “for the very first time” migrants arriving on small boats faced being sent back to France.
It will “show others trying to make the same journey that it will be in vain” and represents “a real breakthrough in the way that we tackle the vile trade of people-smuggling”, Sir Keir said.
Mr Macron has repeatedly stressed the need for the UK to avoid attracting migrants, saying “you should not underestimate the impact the situation has” in parts of northern France around Calais and Dunkirk.
He said a third of illegal migrants entering Europe’s Schengen border-free area sought to eventually reach the UK and welcomed measures to tackle illegal work.
And during his visit to the UK he highlighted the need for measures “addressing pull factors”.
This agreement is a humiliation for Brexit Britain. We have acted today as an EU member and bowed down to an arrogant French President.
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) July 10, 2025
Sir Keir said the “completely unprecedented” scale of the crackdown on illegal working would mean for cross-Channel migrants that “the jobs they have been promised in the UK will no longer exist”.
The Home Office said authorities will soon undertake “a major nationwide blitz targeting illegal working hotspots, focusing on the gig economy and migrants working as delivery riders”.
Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat have already committed to ramp up facial verification and fraud checks over the coming months after being called in for talks with ministers.
Some 21,117 migrants have made small boat crossings in 2025 according to the latest Home Office figures, a record for this point in a year, with more making the journey on Thursday as the UK and French leaders met.
Mr Macron said the deal was part of a “collaborative, co-operative and comprehensive plan”, beginning with work in the countries of origin of the migrants seeking to reach the UK.
He said that voters were “sold a lie” on Brexit, which left the UK without a returns agreement with the EU, creating “an incentive to make the crossing, the precise opposite of what Brexit had promised”.
But Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage, who spent the day on a boat in the English Channel watching migrants making the crossing, said: “This agreement is a humiliation for Brexit Britain.
“We have acted today as an EU member and bowed down to an arrogant French president.”
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: “This is the latest catastrophic example that when Labour negotiates, the UK loses. “
