Labour’s £662million French deal designed to block illegal migrant crossings has been torn apart as the eye-watering cost per boat stopped has been revealed.
Speaking to GB News, commentator Duncan Barkes revealed that if police maintain their current record of boats stopped, it will cost Britons £890,000 per boat.
New footage has emerged showing French police coming under attack as they attempted to intercept a migrant boat.
Officers can be seen using spray to disperse the migrants, who threw projectiles at the officers before they deflated the dinghy by cutting it with a knife.
The new elite French police unit has stopped 12 small boats from travelling up the coast to pick up migrants waiting to cross the Channel to Britain.
As a result of that operation, part of the new £662million UK-French deal aimed at tackling channel crossings, French police units have prevented 185 small boat crossing attempts in the first three months of this deal.
Discussing the deal on GB News, Mr Barkes declared it is “a lot of money for stopping just two boats a day”.
He said: “It’s a lot of money, isn’t it, for a result that’s basically stopping two boats a day. I think our listeners and viewers this morning will have their own views on this.
Duncan Barkes said: ‘Whilst you can argue at one end of the spectrum, there’s something going on, the domestic impact on this is still to be felt by lots of people around the country, and that’s the next challenge for our Prime Minister.’
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“This is a bit of a win for the Home Secretary, so I think our PM Andy Burnham and Shabana Mahmood will be able to use this to say, look, we are doing something positive here, it is stopping boats crossing the Channel.”
Mr Barkes argued that the numbers do appear to be depleting slightly under Labour, as the lowest number of crossings were recorded in July.
He said: “It’s also worth noting that July has recorded the lowest number of crossings for that month since 2020.
“So if you’re a Labour politician, if you’re in Government, you’re going to go look, you can see for yourselves that we are doing something and we are achieving stuff.”
The would-be migrants turned to violence on the beaches of France – and could soon be welcomed into Britain | PA
Breaking down the cost of the deal with the French looking at the current record, host Stephen Dixon highlighted that if they maintained it for the rest of the year, it “still would cost £890,000 per boat that they stop”.
Mr Barkes responded: “It’s not value for money in the real world, the world that we all live in and work in.
“But if you’re a politician and you’re desperate for a little shred of positivity to be able to say, look, we’re doing something here and it’s effective, that is the headline you get this morning.”
The commentator warned that although some crossings are being prevented, Prime Minister Andy Burnham still faces the “domestic challenge” of the illegal migrants currently in Britain.
He said: “Whilst it’s all well and good saying, well, look, we’re stopping the boats, we have thousands and thousands of migrants in this country who crossed the Channel here on UK shores, and they’re going to villages in Oxfordshire to be housed or Barnham in Suffolk, another village, 1,250 migrants going to be housed in an area where the village population is around 600.
“So whilst you can argue at one end of the spectrum, there’s something going on, the domestic impact on this is still to be felt by lots of people around the country, and that’s the next challenge for our Prime Minister.
Mr Barkes told GB News that Andy Burnham faces the ‘domestic challenge’ of the migrants already in Britain
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“We saw him a couple of days ago talking about affluent areas of the UK having to take their fair share of of migrants, that’s not a vote winner.”
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has said: “Our new UK-France deal is already having a real impact, stopping crossings before they happen and disrupting the criminal gangs behind them.
“People smugglers should be in no doubt, we’re taking down their operations, seizing their equipment and breaking their business model for good.
“Through our joint work with France, we have stopped over 47,000 small boat crossing attempts since the election and we will not let up.”