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Reform UK has insisted its deal with France’s far-right National Rally to return migrants back across the channel was fully approved by the party and signed off by its president, Jordan Bardella, amid a furious backlash in France.
The agreement unveiled on Friday between Nigel Farage and Bardella, who is the 30-year-old protege of presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, appeared to directly contradict Le Pen’s long-held policy of refusing to accept the return of those who arrive in the UK in small boats from France.
Le Pen was pressed for her position by journalists from France TV, the state broadcaster, on Monday. Le Pen declined to comment, saying she would talk about the issue soon, but at a time of her choosing.
In 2021, Le Pen said she wanted a rewriting of border agreements for the UK to specifically send people arriving on boats back to their countries of origin, instead of returning them to France.
Since the agreement, Bardella has come under fire from political parties in France for signing the deal, with Benjamin Haddad, the Europe minister, criticising Bardella for “submission” that was “against our interests and sovereignty”.
Some French media have questioned whether Bardella was duped by Reform, querying whether the French translation accurately conveyed the meaning by Farage that the National Rally (RN) was prepared to accept any migrants back who travel by small boat.
However, a Reform spokesperson said it was “signed off by both Bardella and the presidential team”, that the policy was included in the French version as well as the English, and it could “confirm both parties are fully on board”.
Until the summer, Bardella had been considered as a potential replacement for Le Pen in next spring’s presidential election but will now run as her future prime minister. In July, when a Paris appeal court upheld Le Pen’s conviction for embezzling European parliament funds, her ban from running for office was reduced, allowing her to stand.
Farage has kept Le Pen at arm’s length, while having cultivated good relations with Bardella over the past year, but he is rumoured to be planning to meet her later in the autumn.
He previously rejected the idea of a tie-up in 2014 in the European parliament when he accused Le Pen’s party of having a history of “prejudice and antisemitism”, which she said was slander. Last week, Farage said he would not have done a deal with the party when led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father, a convicted Holocaust denier who co-founded the Front National in 1972. Le Pen expelled her father from the party in 2015. Farage praised her, saying she had got rid of “extreme elements”.
At the heart of the row in France is the wording of the document Farage brought out for Bardella to sign with him on stage in Birmingham, calling it a memorandum of understanding.
Both texts, presented side by side in English and French, state that, if Farage and Bardella become prime ministers of their respective countries, the UK will intercept boats launched from the French coast, and that France will return people onboard to their countries of origin.
But the English text carried an extra phrase saying “France will ordinarily accept these persons” who would then be returned to their home country. This appeared to show that Bardella was promising to accept returned persons in France, which contradicts the long-held position of RN.
France TV said RN denied any controversy, saying the text was only a declaration of intention that would be refined at a later point. Speaking in Italy over the weekend, Bardella suggested his party in government would prevent migrants from reaching France by much tougher border controls, resulting in the numbers crossing to the UK being much lower.
However, RN’s opponents were critical of Bardella for signing a memorandum on immigration on stage with Farage.
The MP, Sacha Houlié, an ally of the centre-left would-be presidential candidate, Raphael Glucksmann, wrote on X about what he called “a miserable episode where the whole of France could see Mr Bardella used as a doormat by the English far-right.” He told the RN: “You claim to be patriots, you’re cowards.”
Gabriel Attal, the former centrist prime minister and presidential candidate, wrote on X: “To applause from his party members, Nigel Farage made Jordan Bardella sign a memorandum to ensure that all migrants intercepted in the Channel are sent back to France. Either Jordan Bardella doesn’t understand English or he is shamefully weak when it comes to defending French interests. And I think he does understand English.”
Édouard Philippe, a former prime minister and centre-right candidate, said it was an example of hypocrisy and division in Bardella’s party. Philippe said it looked like Bardella found it difficult to stand up to Farage in order to “protect French interests”.
Xavier Bertrand, the rightwing head of the northern Hauts-de-France region, wrote on X that in agreeing that France alone would take responsibility for returning people to their home countries, Bardella was “reducing France to the status of Britain’s subcontractor.”
Chris Philp, the Conservative shadow home secretary, said: “Reform UK’s deal with Jordan Bardella is a complete farce … Time and again, Reform prove they are fundamentally unserious with grand claims for the cameras, with none of the detail or hard work that might survive actual scrutiny.”
