France’s Jordan Bardella has promised to stop the boats. Now where have we heard that before? The president of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally made his boast on a day trip to London on Tuesday. After lunching with Reform UK’s Nigel Farage, the 30-year-old outlined his strategy for curtailing the passage of illegal immigrants between France and England.

‘My ambition is to make France the least attractive country for mass immigration in Europe,’ explained Bardella. ‘From there, if it is no longer possible to cross, then there will be no one left in Calais.’

Bardella said he will make France unattractive for migrants by abolishing the right of asylum, expelling foreign criminals and giving French citizens priority to social housing and welfare. He also vowed to hold a referendum on immigration, saying that ‘I’m in favour of a total overhaul’.

Retailleau was thwarted at every turn by the blob

These are bullish words from Bardella – but he knows this overhaul is impossible without first defeating ‘Le Blob’. It is the unelected blob that runs France, a blob composed almost exclusively of bourgeois Socialists who are the ideological children of the student protestors of 1968. The president of the Constitutional Council, for example, is Richard Ferrand, a former member of Socialist party and a........

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