“Farage Steps Into Global Spotlight: French Presidential Favourite Pledges to STOP Channel Boats After High-Stakes Meeting With UK Reform Leader”
The potential next French president has vowed he will stop Channel boats as he met Nigel Farage.
Jordan Bardella, who polls show is on track to win the 2027 contest, insisted he is ready to let UK Border Force carry out so-called ‘pushbacks’.
The tactic has previously been rejected on safety grounds because the French authorities would not accept returned vessels.
The right-winger said he would also introduce tough policies to stop migrants reaching the French coast.
The intervention came in a series of interviews as he visited the UK – and held talks with Mr Farage.
Mr Bardella, who leads the controversial National Rally party, and the Reform chief discussed illegal migration and energy policy.
The French MEP said that he believes Mr Farage will be the next Prime Minister.
Jordan Bardella’s intervention came in a series of interviews as he visited the UK – including holding talks with Nigel Farage (pictured together)
Mr Bardella, who polls show is on track to win the 2027 contest, insisted he is ready to let UK Border Force carry out so-called ‘pushbacks’. Pictured, migrants boarding a boat at Gravelines, northern France this Autumn
The French MEP said that he believes Mr Farage will be the next Prime Minister
Mr Bardella labelled Keir Starmer’s ‘one in, one out’ migrant swap deal with Emmanuel Macron a political ‘smokescreen’.
Asked by the Telegraph about ‘pushbacks’, Mr Bardella said: ‘NGOs funded by public money go and pick up boats 20 kilometres off the Tunisian or Libyan coast and then Frontex [the European border and coast guard agency] takes them.
‘I’m against this, so I have to be consistent with my principles. I can’t defend the notion of pushbacks and then refuse to allow Great Britain to do the same.’
Mr Bardella is proposing a ‘double border system’ at French and EU frontiers, which he argues can stop migrants before they reach the Channel.
He offered backing for Franco-British patrols but suggested they will not be needed once the problem is tackled at source.
Meanwhile, Sir Keir has launched a fresh bid to reform international refugee rights rules.
Ahead of a European summit today, the PM has urged fellow members to ‘go further’ in modernising the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to protect their borders and see off the rise of Right-wing parties.
Last month Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced plans to stop migrants using the ECHR to avoid deportation.
Keir Starmer pictured in Downing Street this week with Emmanuel Macron, whose term as French president ends in 2027
But both the Conservatives and Reform UK say the measures do not go far enough and have called for a complete withdrawal from the convention.
Writing in the Guardian, Sir Keir said that updating the ECHR is urgently required to tackle mass migration and confront the rise of Right-wing parties that are shaking up the status quo across Europe.
‘The current asylum framework was created for another era. In a world with mass mobility, yesterday’s answers do not work,’ the Prime Minister wrote in a joint article with the Danish leader Mette Frederiksen.
‘We will always protect those fleeing war and terror – but the world has changed and asylum systems must change with it.’
Sir Keir added: ‘Migration must be orderly, managed and sustainable. Irregular routes should not be the go-to option – so we must dismantle the human smuggling networks that prey on desperation.’
