French President Emmanuel Macron will not meet Reform UK leader Nigel Farage during his three-day state visit to Britain this week, despite scheduling talks with Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and Liberal Democrat counterpart Sir Ed Davey, GB News can confirm.
The apparent snub comes as Macron and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer prepare to announce a controversial “one-in, one-out” migrant returns deal as the centrepiece of the French President’s visit from July 8-10.
Farage told reporters he has “no idea” if he is due to meet Macron, who will be hosted by King Charles III and Queen Camilla at Windsor Castle during the historic visit.
Reform Deputy Leader Condemns ‘Outrageous Snub’
Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice launched a fierce attack on the decision to exclude Farage from high-level meetings with the French President.
“This is an outrageous and deliberate snub,” Tice fumed. Reform is polling higher than all of the other parties, and by denying Nigel a meeting with Macron, the Establishment is shutting its eyes to the lights of the Reform train that is coming.
The deputy leader suggested the exclusion was politically motivated, adding: “If Macron was confident of his handling of the small boats issue, he would happily meet with Nigel.
Reform’s Rising Political Influence
Recent polling data supports Tice’s claims about Reform UK’s electoral momentum. A YouGov survey from February showed the party polling at 25%, just one percentage point behind Labour at 24%, with the Conservatives trailing at 21%.
An Ipsos poll released in June went further, placing Reform UK on 34% vote share – the highest the polling firm has ever recorded for the party – giving Farage’s movement a nine-point lead over Labour.
The British public is now slightly more likely to consider Reform UK (37%) as the main opposition party ahead of the Conservatives (33%), according to recent Ipsos research.
Controversial Migration Deal Expected
The state visit will see Macron and Starmer co-chair the 37th Franco-British summit on Thursday, where they are expected to unveil details of their proposed migration agreement.
Under the reported “one-in, one-out” scheme, Britain would return small boat migrants to France in exchange for accepting asylum seekers with legitimate family ties in the UK.
It’ll start as a pilot but it’s to prove the point that if you pay for your passage on a boat, then you could quite quickly find yourself back in France,” a government source told The Times.
Opposition to Deal Mounts
The proposed arrangement has already faced criticism from multiple quarters. Five EU member states – Italy, Spain, Greece, Malta and Cyprus – have sent a letter to the European Commission expressing “serious concerns” about the bilateral agreement.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp dismissed the plan as a “gimmick,” stating: “We pay the French half a billion pounds to wave the boats off from Calais, and in return we get a migrant merry-go-round where the same number still come here.
Farage’s Long-Standing Criticism
Farage has been a vocal critic of UK-France cooperation on migration, particularly regarding the financial arrangements between the two nations.
Since 2014, Britain has provided France with £800 million to address Channel crossings, with former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledging an additional £467 million in 2023.
The French are failing to stop the boats at sea, failing to return them like the Belgians do,” Farage has argued, claiming successive agreements have offered “very little in return” for British taxpayers’ money.
State Visit Programme
The French President and his wife Brigitte will arrive on Tuesday, with the
Image Credit:
This composite image merges two separate licensed photographs:
- Left: Emmanuel Macron – Official portrait, © Présidence de la République française, photo by Soazig de La Moissonnière, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Right: Nigel Farage – Image by Chatham House, licensed under CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
