Sacré bleu! We have a migration deal with France
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 11 July 2025
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today’s podcast: sacré bleu – we have a one-in, one-out migration deal with France. In a press conference yesterday, Keir Starmer and President Macron announced a deal they hope will curb Channel crossings. But, as ever, the devil is in the detail, with some key concerns about the numbers and the time frame. Digital ID cards are also back on the agenda – after an intervention from former MI6 boss Alex Younger on Newsnight. The argument is that they could deter the ‘grey labour force’ and make it harder to work in the UK for those arriving via unauthorised means. It’s the Blairite policy that refuses to go away – but, as Michael Simmons argues, we may already have the infrastructure.
It’s not all rosy for the government, and we could well be heading for economic catastrophe. This follows the publication of the OBR’s Fiscal Risks and Sustainability document. The language is polite, matter-of-fact and bureaucratic. But read between the lines, look at the numbers, and it paints a damning picture of the risks we face as a country. Is a wealth tax the answer?
Lucy Dunn speaks to James Heale and Michael Simmons.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | As a Coffee House Shots listener, you will be all too familiar with the headlines that have dominated the news cycle in the past month. |
| 0:06.4 | Trump, tariffs, trade wars, stock market crashes, and general economic instability. |
| 0:11.8 | But it's during these periods of uncertainty that it's most important to have a steady hand guiding your finances. |
| 0:17.3 | Charles Stanley Wealth Management understands the complexity of today's financial landscape. |
| 0:21.8 | Their experienced financial planners and investment managers are here to help you navigate through the storm and provide peace of mind. |
| 0:28.5 | For more information, visit www.chal-Sanley.com.com.com to schedule a free, no-obligation call to discuss your situation. |
| 0:37.0 | And remember, investment |
| 0:38.6 | involves risk. Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm Lizzie Dunn and today I'm joined |
| 0:47.2 | by James Heel and Michael Simmons. After days of intense discussion, Kier Starrmer struck a one-in, |
| 0:53.2 | one-out migration deal with France's |
| 0:55.0 | President Emmanuel Macron yesterday afternoon. The returns deal will allow up to 50 small-boat |
| 0:59.4 | migrants to be sent back to France each week, with the pilot scheme to begin shortly. |
| 1:03.9 | Starmer has hailed their arrangement as a breakthrough moment, but the papers haven't been all that |
| 1:07.5 | impressed by the detail. James, as you wrote on Coffee House yesterday, there remain a number of unanswered questions. What don't we know about this deal yet? |
| 1:15.0 | I think there's three big potential hold-ups to the deal. First of all, is the numbers, |
| 1:18.8 | which Starma and Macron were very reluctant to put a figure on. I've been widely reported |
| 1:22.4 | it'll be about 50 a week. Of course, 50 a week. We're to roughly to 17 in one out in terms of the numbers we're expecting to arrive here this year. So it's not going to be able to stop most, only a very small number of those boats crossing. So I think that's the key thing is how much scale are you going to be expanding this scheme? You know, if it was sort of 10,000, that might be different from 2,500,000 to actually as a functioning deterrence. The first thing is the numbers. |
| 1:45.0 | The second thing is about the timing. |
| 1:46.8 | So both of them, yes, at the press conference. |
| 1:48.3 | Oh, in the coming weeks. |
| 1:49.5 | Now, I've been covering migration for the spectator for four years or so. |
| 1:52.9 | And the number of times the coming weeks and months, that turns into, you know, a much longer time period. |
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