Meghan Benton, director for Global Programs at the Migration Policy Institute, told MPs that Brexit created a ‘new dimension’ in tackling illegal migration to the UK
15:39, 16 Dec 2025Updated 15:39, 16 Dec 2025
MPs heard Brexit is ‘part of the narrative’ (file image)(Image: Getty Images)
Brexit is “part of the narrative” behind small boat crossings, MPs have been told.
A cross-party committee heard that people arriving illegally say they ‘don’t want to get Dublin-ed’ – a reference to the Dublin Convention which allowed the UK to return asylum seekers to the EU. Meghan Benton, director for Global Programs at the Migration Policy Institute, said Brexit had created a “new dimension” .
Under the convention – which applies in the EU – asylum seekers can be returned to the first member state they arrived in. No alternative arrangement was reached when the UK left the bloc – although in the UK and France are currently piloting a ‘one-in-one-out’ returns arrangement in a bid to deter crossings.
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French President Emmanuel Macron said Brexit made it harder for the UK to tackle small boat crossings(Image: Getty)
Asked whether Brexit had been a factor behind small boat crossings, Ms Benton told the Home Affairs Select Committee: “I do think that it’s really hard to get good evidence on this.
“So we don’t know a lot about the population of people in northern France and whether or not, for instance, they have a pending asylum claim elsewhere or a return order. But there are some interviews with people, where they say things like, well, ‘I don’t want to get Dublin-ed’.
“And so that’s it’s clearly become part of the narrative there that they see the UK as a second bite of the apple.” Critics argue that losing a returns agreement with Europe played into the hands of smuggling gangs. French President Emmanuel Macron said in the summer that Brexit had impacted Britain’s ability to remove people and was encouraging crossings.
And Keir Starmer has referred to small boats as “Farage boats” – saying the Reform leader had been “wrong” to claim during the Brexit referendum campaign in 2016 that leaving the EU would make no difference to migration policy.
The committee was told that the ‘one-in-one-out’ return deal with France would have to be ramped up to discourage crossings. Dr Mihnea Cuibus, a researcher at the Oxford Migration Observatory, said: “One easy way to think about it is from the perspective of an individual asylum seekers, because we’re talking about essentially the risk of being returned weighed up against the costs and the risk of making the crossing.
“And the point is that risks need to be high enough. Now, there’s no magic number. Say we get to 50% and then there’s the turn effect, it’s hard to pinpoint one exact reason, but that probability – the share of people who are returned – would need to be fairly high.
“Because we need to consider that these are people that have taken an enormous amount of risks already, that are risking their lives in order to cross the Channel. And anything that moves the needle in terms of their decision to cross or not, you would have to be quite substantial.”