France admits it could end small boats crisis – but Macron’s Brexit hatred stands in the way

Oui can help

IT’S quite the confession from France.

Its government knows it could solve the small boats crisis overnight by taking back all migrants landing illegally on our shores.

With the deadly trip rendered pointless, the numbers queuing for a dinghy in northern France would dry up.

If they are sent straight back, it “would send a clear message”;, admits Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau. You can say that encore une fois, monsieur.

Trouble is, President Macron loathes Brexit and wants it to fail. And he’s always preferred to let the small boats set sail than strike a bespoke deal direct with Britain to stop them.

Mr Retailleau is a no-nonsense character who also believes the ECHR too often “tramples”; on nations’ sovereignty.

Can he persuade Macron to get real about ending this appalling, lethal trade?

Sum friend

WHAT now for the “special relationship”; if Donald Trump slaps punitive tariffs today on British exports to the US?

Our economy under Labour is already in dire straits.

Trump’s deranged “liberation day”; could even tip us, supposedly America’s No1 ally, into recession.

That seems the likely fate of the US too. Millions re-elected Trump because prices soared under Joe Biden.

They didn’t vote for higher inflation and a collapse in their savings triggered by Trump’s ignorance about the effect of tariffs.

His international bullying is hammering stock markets — and generating fear among families and businesses across America and those nations it traditionally counts as friends.

And it could be terminal for our Government’s central mission, growth.

Not much is more important, then, than somehow talking Trump out of it.

Isles betrayal

LABOUR are lucky that those whose benefits they slashed are not paying more attention to the Chagos Islands debacle.

This wretched, inexplicable “deal”; is finally done.

We surrender strategically vital British islands in the Indian Ocean to Mauritius, a distant African country with no valid claim.

Then we pay Mauritius £90million a year for 99 years, plus inflation, to lease back an airbase we already own.

It really is that deranged.

The Americans will realise, too late, what an own-goal it was when Mauritius lets Chinese warships circle the islands to spy on the UK-US Diego Garcia base.

The Government is coy about how it will fund this multi-billion-pound betrayal of our interests, motivated by wokery over “colonialism”;.

But given what it is saving in welfare, it’s fair to say pensioners and the ­disabled are paying the bill.

Good luck defending that on the doorsteps.