Sir Keir Starmer’s new “one in, one out” deal with France is in jeopardy after an asylum seeker successfully delayed his removal at the High Court and deportation flights left the country without any migrants on board.
Several migrants who were due to be among the first to be sent back to France under the swap deal had their removal delayed after legal action, and the first legal case reached the High Court on Tuesday afternoon, with a detained asylum seeker successfully arguing against his planned deportation, which was set for Wednesday.
It was the second day in a row that the Home Office failed to deport migrants on passenger flights intended to get the returns deal underway.
The department has booked seats for migrants on several flights this week, with asylum seekers given directions for deportation on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Multiple flights are planned on Wednesday,The Independent understands.
Downing Street denied that the government’s return deal with France was a shambles, or that its plans had been hampered by legal action. A spokesperson for No 10 also denied that the latest postponement showed that ministers were powerless in the face of the courts, adding: “As I said, we have never provided an operational running commentary on the details of the scheme.”
Numerous asylum seekers are believed to have issued letters before legal action to the Home Office, detailing why they should not be removed to France, and officials have cancelled their plane tickets and deportation notices.
Lawyers representing an Eritrean asylum seeker, who was due to be removed on a flight at 9am on Wednesday, told the High Court that he faced a real risk of destitution if returned to France. The migrant said he was a victim of trafficking in Libya, and had been subjected to forced labour in the North African country.
He said that he had been put in a warehouse with 50-60 other migrants and held against his will for two months. He travelled from Libya through Italy to France, where he was living on the street and was gifted some money by his mother to make the small boat journey across the Channel.
The Eritrean was granted interim relief by a High Court judge on Tuesday evening, allowing him 14 days to make legal representations, and halting his immediate removal to France.
The development is a massive blow to Sir Keir, who is trying to turn round a 10-point lag in the polls behind Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, with the worsening migrant crisis being a key issue.
There are high hopes that the one-in, one-out deal will break the business model of the gangs behind the small boat crossings, but the latest legal delays look set to scupper hopes of an early success.
Imogen Townley, a solicitor representing an asylum seeker who was granted a temporary suspension order preventing removal to France, accused the government of taking an “arbitrary and chaotic approach” to selecting people for deportation to France.
“You would think that they would be able to identify the right people to remove to France, but unfortunately, they have been taking this fairly unreasoned approach, and you're even seeing children caught up in this process, and children selected for removal to France when they are explicitly or should explicitly be excluded From this process”, she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
The issues have brought back memories of the notorious Rwanda scheme launched by the Conservatives, which failed after it was tied up in legal knots.
However, a cabinet minister denied that the High Court decision will prevent the deal with France from going ahead.
Technology secretary Liz Kendall told Times Radio she would not comment on “operational details”, but said: “This is one person, it is not going to undermine the fundamental basis of this deal.”
She added: “This decision is disappointing, but it won’t prevent the rest of that deal going ahead.”
The Conservatives said Labour is “too weak to control our borders” and called for the complete repeal of the Human Rights Act for immigration matters.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: “Two flights, zero deportations. Labour’s France returns deal failed to remove a single migrant, yet thousands more continue to arrive. The government must come clean on whether even one person has been sent to us from France in return.”
Some of the asylum seekers who have been detained at the Brook House detention centre at Gatwick under the scheme are believed to be survivors of torture and trafficking. Others have received Home Office decisions saying that there are reasonable grounds to believe that they may be victims of modern slavery, it is understood.
The Independent previously reported that children had been detained for removal to France, but these minors have since been released into the care of the local council. At least 12 children whose ages are disputed by officials, meaning they were treated as adults, have been detained under the scheme, with four still in detention, support workers said.
The charity Detention Action warned that screening interviews for some migrants are being held after midnight, with some conducted by phone and video conference. This is resulting in poor-quality assessments, they said.
The legal advice service is also fraught with delays, and migrants only have seven days to challenge their removal to France.
Lochlinn Parker, acting director of the charity, said: “Adults and children are arriving from Afghanistan, Palestine, Syria and elsewhere, seeking our protection, only to be locked in small cells and denied the support they urgently need. The new home secretary must change course and stop putting people in even more danger.”
Among the migrants detained for deportation to France are people from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Palestine, Somalia, Sudan and Syria, and Kurdish people from a number of countries.
Emma Ginn from Medical Justice said the group’s clinicians have “medically assessed people in detention under this scheme who are survivors of torture and trafficking, with experiences of sexual abuse and slavery”, accusing the government of ignoring “the fundamental issue that they are seeking safety”.
Meanwhile, Griff Ferris, of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said the scheme was “just another grim attempt by a government flailing to appease the racist far right”.
The number of migrants arriving in the UK after crossing the English Channel has topped 30,000 for the year so far – the earliest point in a calendar year at which the mark has been passed since data on crossings was first reported in 2018.
A Home Office spokesperson said the department would “not comment on operational details” of the flights.
The spokesperson said: “Under the new UK-France treaty, people crossing in small boats can now be detained and removed to France. We expect the first returns to take place imminently.
“Protecting the UK border is our top priority. We will do whatever it takes to restore order to secure our borders.”
