Wednesday briefing: ​Why small boat crossings are here to stay ​

Good morning. You’d be forgiven for missing it. Earlier this month, the government quietly scrapped its “one in, one out” deal with France. The partnership was supposed to eliminate small boat crossings by deterring asylum seekers from making the treacherous journey across the world’s busiest shipping channel.

Although small boat arrivals have actually decreased over the last year, the far right continues to weaponise these crossings. In its annual threat briefing yesterday, the head of MI5 warned that extremists with anti-immigration opinions are increasingly considering carrying out terrorist attacks.

UK news | Extremists holding anti-immigration opinions are becoming increasingly likely to consider carrying out terrorist attacks against immigration centres and asylum hotels, the head of MI5 has warned.

UK politics | Nigel Farage has denied that a Reform UK government would authorise lethal force against small boat crossings in the Channel.

Ukraine | Andy Burnham will host Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Downing Street on Wednesday as the UK seeks to further underline its support for the Ukrainian president, in contrast to his difficulties with Donald Trump.

US politics | Kimberly Guilfoyle is stepping down as US ambassador to Greece after weeks of reports that she sought payment from a Trump donor in exchange for access to administration officials.

Pope Leo XIV | Pope Leo has lung cancer, the Vatican said late on Tuesday. Leo, 71, underwent an operation and had the lower lobe of his right lung removed, with tests confirming a diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma, the Vatican said.

In depth: ‘I’ve never seen as much suffering caused to refugees by government policy’

The one in, one out policy that was announced in a joint press conference between Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron in July last year was supposed to render small boat crossings pointless. A person arriving in a small boat to the UK could be forcibly returned to France in exchange for another person who would be brought legally to the UK. “In effect,” Diane Taylor wrote in a moving piece about the scheme in September, asylum seekers were “used as reluctant human shields to protect our borders from others in the same predicament.”

The government would have liked the scheme to continue, and its official explanation was that it was scrapped because it couldn’t be effectively scaled up. But it seems likely that political concerns in France also played a role. “At a time when immigration is going to be a major issue in the French presidential election, France doesn’t want to be seen to be taking in more unwanted people from the UK,” Rajeev Syal, the Guardian’s home affairs editor, tells me.

It was also accompanied by the government’s fortification of security measures along the French border. To some extent, these security measures help to explain the drop in small boat crossings this year, together with an overall reduction in arrivals of asylum seekers to Europe. But they have also encouraged people to make even more unsafe crossings. The increased police presence in northern France has led to more trips in larger “mega-dinghies”, which became a subject of panicked headlines this summer, as smugglers attempt to transport more people in single crossings.