George Howie

The fact check results are in, not a very good look for the Home Office 🤨 Detailed fact check (claim‑by‑claim) 1. “French law enforcement are failing to prevent small boat crossings.” This is a characterisation, not a statistic. There is no official UK or French dataset measuring “failure” or “success” rates of French enforcement. Verdict: Not fact‑checkable as stated. 2. “UK‑French cooperation has already stopped over 46,000 attempted crossings since the election.” The only 46,000 figure in official data refers to detected arrivals in 2022, not prevented attempts. No Home Office publication reports 46,000 prevented attempts in any period, let alone since the election. Verdict: Unsupported. 3. “In May alone, 65% of all small‑boat events were stopped.” Home Office monthly breakdowns exist, but no public dataset reports “percentage of events stopped”. The House of Commons Library briefing does not include such a metric. Verdict: Unverifiable. 4. “Landmark new payment‑by‑results deal with France.” There is no publicly available Home Office or UK‑France bilateral agreement described as “payment by results”. Past deals (2018–2023) involved fixed funding, not performance‑linked payments. Verdict: Unconfirmed / no public evidence. 5. “Removals of small‑boat migrants are at record levels.” Home Office statistics do not publish a category called “small‑boat removals”. Removals overall have fluctuated and are far below historic peaks (e.g., 2004–2012). Verdict: Unsupported. 6. “Asylum claims are down by 12%.” Asylum applications vary year‑to‑year, but the available datasets (YE Dec 2025, YE Mar 2026) do not show a clear 12% drop attributable to the period referenced. No dataset matches this exact figure. Verdict: Unverifiable. 7. “We have removed or deported almost 70,000 people who were here illegally – an increase of 41%.” Home Office statistics for YE Dec 2025 show: • Total enforced returns are far below 70,000 annually. • Returns have not increased by 41% in any recent year. No official dataset supports “70,000 removals”. Verdict: Incorrect based on available data.