Farage Signs Channel Returns Pact With France's Bardella on Stage
To shouts of “Vive la France!”, Mr Farage and National Rally leader Jordan Bardella signed a giant mock memorandum: a Reform government would return small-boat arrivals to France, and an RN government would “ordinarily accept” them — contingent on both winning power. Mr Farage called it “a new Entente Cordiale” that would “stop the boats forever”; Mr Bardella promptly downgraded it: “This is more a declaration of intentions rather than commitment.” Labour called it “pointless posturing” by “an increasingly disgraced Reform leader”.
As policy the document is vapour — two opposition parties promising each other future governments’ cooperation, with the operative word “ordinarily” dismissed by its own French signatory within the hour — but as political theatre it is shrewd counter-programming: twenty-four hours after Mr Burnham and Mr Macron agreed to “scale up” the actual, functioning Channel cooperation that has cut crossings 43%, Reform staged its shadow version with the man who may be France’s next president. That is the pact’s real content: a bet on RN winning in April, at which point the “declaration of intentions” becomes a channel between governments. The Greens’ objection — platforming a party with the RN’s history — writes the attack ads. Watch April’s French presidential polling; this document’s value moves with it.