UK-France ‘One In, One Out’ Deal Scrapped As 13 Jailed Over Deadly Channel Sinking

The UK and France have scrapped their “one in, one out” migrant deal aimed at discouraging dangerous English Channel crossings, as a Paris court separately sentenced 13 people over the 2021 boat disaster that killed 31 migrants.

The UK Home Office said Wednesday that the pilot was “no longer processing new cases”. Under the arrangement, some migrants who crossed to Britain by small boat could be returned to France in exchange for an equivalent number of asylum seekers with links to the UK being transferred through legal routes. Around 1,500 people were returned to France under the scheme, with a similar number transferred to Britain.

The deal was originally intended to last three years but included an early-termination clause. France had opposed extending it beyond October 1 and has pushed for a broader UK-EU arrangement instead. UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood previously told MPs that returns had been difficult to scale up and cost about £56,000 per person. More than 19,000 people had crossed the Channel by small boat between January and September 27, down 42% from the same period in 2025.

The scheme’s end came as a Paris court handed prison sentences of up to 10 years to 13 people involved in the November 2021 sinking. Six were convicted of manslaughter, while seven received sentences for lesser smuggling-related offences. One of the 14 people tried was acquitted, while two others remain at large.

The boat, carrying migrants mostly from Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan as well as Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Iran, Somalia, Vietnam and Egypt, was overcrowded, unfit for open-sea navigation and inadequately equipped. Thirty-one people died, including a seven-year-old girl. French authorities recovered 27 bodies, while four people remain missing.

The boat began deflating about four hours after leaving the French coast after its engine stopped. Survivors and passengers made repeated distress calls to emergency services, but the vessel was found nearly 12 hours after the first pleas for help, according to the Guardian. Only two people survived.

A separate French investigation into seven military personnel accused of failing to assist those aboard remains ongoing. The court said the disaster exposed the consequences of smuggling networks profiting from vulnerable migrants.