We should have seen this coming. It was patent from the start that last year’s ‘one in, one out’ agreement with France was a toothless pact designed for show, that left all the immigration cards in France’s hands and most of the more undesirable would-be migrants in ours. We could also have foreseen that a sniping lawfare campaign against even this limited effort would start then and there. And so it proved. This week, Mr Justice Sheldon in the High Court peremptorily stopped the removal to France of three boat arrivals who, rather implausibly, alleged that they had been trafficked.

The details are boringly legal, but they matter. Any irregular arrival who claims to stay on the basis that they are the victim of modern slavery or trafficking is immediately interviewed. If the officer determines there might be reasonable grounds to believe them, they get a very temporary right to stay while the matter is investigated. If the interviewer decides there are no reasonable grounds to believe them, their trafficking case is shut out. Until the ‘one in one out’ scheme, official Home........

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