A human right barrister has said the Paris London migrant deal is “toothless” and it is not as effective as the government has been raving about.
Fadi Farhat said the “one-in, one-out” migrant deal is “not worth the paper it is written on” as there are weaknesses that may well leave the government powerless with Paris.
He said that under the agreement the UK has two weeks to make a transfer request and Paris has a fortnight to respond, however, this can be extended to 28 days.
He told GB News, “It’s certainly not the silver bullet promised by Keir Starmer, and the preamble to the agreement talks about how it’s an achievement of diplomatic relations.
He said that from the moment a migrant arrives in the UK after making the Channel crossing the clock starts, but the countdown does not start when an asylum seeker approached an official.
Farhat explained, “So what you could have now is a scenario where actually an individual might want to run down the clock on arrival.
“Let’s say one arrives and then you have a group that disperse and run down the 14 day clock.”
“The treaty explicitly states that if France does not reply within 28 days, then that’s to be treated as a negative request denied,” Farhat added.
Under the signed agreement the government has effectively given Paris the choice over who they want and can ignore some or all of the UK’s transfer requests.
