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Keir Starmer urged to 'focus on domestic issues' by John Redwood
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Jul 10, 2025
Sir John Redwood has launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's migrant negotiations with France, claiming he is being "gamed" by French President Emmanuel Macron.On his final day of a three-day trip to Britain, Macron declared that the UK was "stronger with the European Union", and that dealing with the Channel migrant crisis is a "shared responsibility".FULL STORY HERE.
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Are we being pushed around by Monsieur Macron
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Well, of course, we're being gained by the French. They're so much cleverer at it than Sir Keir Starmer
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I always dread it every time Keir Starmer is in discussion with an international leader
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because he always loses. He doesn't put a strong British case to start with
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and he gives in to more or less anything they want. He's given billions of pounds of our fish away for no advantage to the French
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He's giving away the rights to make our own laws over crucial trade and industrial matters
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And now we see him giving way on this issue about people coming into the country
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So he's actually saying he would like to welcome more legal refugees in through French selection
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in addition to the many tens of thousands we're already accepting. So, no, this is a disastrous deal in the making
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Another humiliation for the United Kingdom. Please, Keir Starmer, concentrate on the domestic issues that matter to people
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And above all Keir Starmer when you said you going to smash the gangs why can you Why don you start arresting people when they arrive Why don you start interrogating them taking away their mobile phones finding out where all the dodgy money is going
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cracking the money laundering and the drug dealing that lies behind a lot of this
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Well, good question. Owen, it does appear as though Keir Starmer... Sir John Redwood's got a point there, hasn't he? It does appear as though Keir Starmer defers to other international leaders
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on the international stage, rather than perhaps always pushing for our best interests despite disagreement
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I don't think I would characterise it like that. This is a man who's got a pretty sensible head on his shoulders
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of certain things, understands that this is the art of diplomacy. It's not about going in and waving the biggest stick
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and using the longest words, trying to bamboozle our international colleagues into submission
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as previous prime ministers did. I mean, this reset the relationship with the French
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which was started by Rishi Sunak in 2023, when he said, you know, this is an entente reset
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when Macron was over then So I think he very much carrying on in that style I think there some people who would just endlessly want to fight the Brexit debate who endlessly want to have us constantly in this kind of diplomatic spat with our European partners
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when the fact is, if you really want to solve this issue of these huge swathes of illegal
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migration, which should be stopped, of undermining and destroying the illegal gangs, which prey
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on the poverty of a lot of these people, or prey on perhaps the cynicism of some as well
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then you have to work with our European colleagues to do this. And I think the way to do that is to use different methods
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this one-in-one-out thing. OK, fine, it might be small, but I wonder if it gets rid of more people than the Rwanda scheme did
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which was much hyped and trailed and didn't deliver very much. I suppose that's a point to put to you, Sir John
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This is, of course, what the government is describing as a sort of trial period, a pilot scheme
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which I suppose, if you're the British government, you might argue could be expanded if the Europeans are sort of happy with initially 50 per week You could easily see how that scaled up Well could you I mean we don even know that the French president has the power to enforce this
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because, of course, he doesn't run a sovereign country. And the EU may have strong views
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We know that the southern states are already lobbying not even to have this very small scheme
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But it's got to be so much bigger than the current plan. I mean, you've been absolutely right doing the figures
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the odds would still be extremely good that you don't get sent back to France
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if you come over on a small boat if they're only sending one in 17 back
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And some of the ones in 17 that were sent back might just simply regroup
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and come over again on the grounds that on the law of averages next time it will work
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So it can't possibly deter the big numbers we need to deter
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If Rwanda had been allowed to flourish without the courts and Labour's opposition all the time
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that would have been a very genuine deterrent And I think that was beginning to work, which is why we had smaller numbers in recent months before the end of the Conservative government than the massive numbers, the big surge we're seeing today
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