Farage-Bardella show of unity tries to paper over immigration sticking points

BIRMINGHAM, England — France’s Jordan Bardella and Britain’s Nigel Farage on Friday staged a grand display of anti-immigration, populist kinship in their first joint appearance Reform UK’s annual conference on Friday. But their plan to end migrant crossings in the English Channel, which was formalized with their signatures on an oversized memorandum of understanding, did not definitively settle the thorniest issue when it comes to any migration agreement: Whether France will take back migrants who are captured trying to enter United Kingdom after leaving French shores on so-called small boats. Farage in August announced that if he wins power, he would use the Royal Navy to launch the “largest military operation in the English Channel since World War II” to intercept so-called small boats and return migrants to French shores, triggering an uproar in France. The document Farage and Bardella signed is only binding if the two parties come to power, and it says France will “will ordinarily accept” migrants intercepted in the Channel — potentially leaving wiggle room for Paris to reject them in some cases. Farage called the line “legalese” at a press conference alongside Bardella. “As Australia proved in 2012, once you provide no incentive to pay a trafficker money to be taken across a stretch of water, in very very short order, the business model will be broken,” Farage said. But Farage was not asked about the fact that the phrase does not even appear in the French version of the agreement. A National Rally official, granted anonymity to discuss the agreement’s finer points, said the French translation is the “final” version of the agreement. The memorandum in both languages says the French will be responsible for deporting migrants to their countries of origin, and that the costs of policing operations will be assessed later. It adds that that France will do “its upmost” to stop departures. “If France gains control of its borders there will be no departures [from French shores],” Bardella said in a speech at the conference. “If we end up doing pushbacks, it would be a failure of our government, it would mean that we have let dozens of thousands of people enter France illegally,” he added. And the National Rally has long vowed to submit its immigration plans to a referendum in France, which is a lengthy and uncertain process that could get derailed even Bardella’s mentor, Marine Le Pen, wins the presidential election next year. Polls have consistently showed she is the front-runner. Still, Farage, whose marquee event was overshadowed by illegal party funding allegations that emerged Thursday, likened the pact to “a genuine new Entente Cordiale.” In a 20-minute address delivered in English, Bardella pledged to work hand in hand with a Reform government if Le Pen wins to stop flows of illegal migration into the United Kingdom. Bardella also indicated that the returns across the Channel would be unlikely to be implemented because France would stop all illegal immigration if they came to power. “Our government will do everything in its power to ensure that France is no longer the gateway for illegal migration into the United Kingdom,” Bardella said.