£662M Deal: UK & France Crack Down on Small Boats Crisis

Under a new £662 million deal with the UK aimed at curbing the arrival of illegal migrants crossing the English Channel, police officers trained in riot control will be deployed to French beaches.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is expected to sign this three-year agreement with France on Thursday. Under the terms of the deal, at least 50 police officers—who have received specialized training in "riot and crowd control strategies"—will be deployed to tackle violence and "aggressive crowds."

As part of this agreement, France will also deploy drones worth millions of pounds, two new helicopters, and a new camera system to detect and intercept human traffickers and illegal migrants.

Ministers have also stated for the first time that if French authorities fail to intercept a sufficient number of people attempting this perilous journey, approximately £100 million in funding provided by the UK could be redirected to other initiatives or withdrawn after one year. Speaking before the signing of this new deal, Mahmood said: "Thanks to our collaborative work with France, thousands of illegal migrants have been prevented from boarding boats bound for Britain.

"But we still have much more to do. This historic agreement will deter illegal migrants from undertaking dangerous journeys and put human traffickers behind bars."

The Conservative Party accused the government of handing over "half a billion pounds of our money to France without any conditions."

Reform UK accused the government of giving France "more money for a system that has already failed."

The number of people crossing the Channel has risen over the past three years; in 2025, 41,472 people arrived in the UK via small boats. This has sparked criticism that the actions taken by French authorities have become ineffective.

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Although some UK politicians argue that France should be doing more, the French government maintains that its police are intercepting boats at sea—aiming to stop migrants before they even board.

On Saturday, 602 migrants arrived in Dover aboard nine boats, bringing the total number of arrivals in 2026 so far to over 6,000.

Under the previous agreement, signed in 2023, the UK paid France £476 million to fund additional patrols aimed at disrupting migrant-smuggling gangs.

This arrangement—which involved approximately 700 law enforcement officers patrolling the French coastline—was set to expire next month.

The Home Office has stated that the number of officers deployed to prevent attempts to cross from northern France to Britain will increase by approximately 42% once the new agreement comes into effect this summer.

This will involve around 1,100 law enforcement, intelligence, and military personnel in northern France, tasked with [tackling] illegal... They will be tasked with locating migrants and preventing them from boarding boats.

France will also provide a new vessel and more than 20 additional maritime officers to target so-called 'taxi boats.'

Approximately £501 million will be spent to intensify enforcement operations along the coast—and if new strategies to prevent border-crossing attempts prove successful, an additional £160 million in funding will be provided.

This latter sum (the additional funding) could be reduced after one year if there is no significant decline in incidents of border crossings involving small boats.

Over the past two months, French authorities have reportedly intercepted six boats carrying migrants. They returned all the migrants to France and handed down prison sentences and deportation orders to five smugglers.

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However, both the Conservative and Reform parties have argued that, in order to prevent border crossings, the UK should withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Responding to the details of the new deal, Conservative MP and Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: "This deal by the government hands over half a billion pounds of our money without any conditions attached.

"Last year, France prevented only one-third of people from boarding boats—and even allowed those illegal migrants to go free to try again. France should not receive a single penny until they are stopping the vast majority of boats."

Reform UK's Shadow Home Secretary, Zia Yusuf, described the deal as "shocking."

He stated: "This is a disgraceful misuse of taxpayers' hard-earned money—funds that could have been used to recruit thousands of new nurses or police officers here in the UK." The Liberal Democrats have stated that the only proper way to prevent people from crossing the border in this manner is to permanently dismantle the business models of criminal gangs and to strike a large-scale agreement with France for the return of individuals.

The Refugee Council argued that, rather than focusing on policing the Channel (the maritime route), attention should be directed toward the vulnerable individuals seeking safety.


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