The European Union (EU) will block a deal with the UK to return trafficked migrants to their departure points in France and elsewhere.
A British government memo, leaked to a 'black-top' tabloid daily newspaper, revealed that the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has rejected proposals for a post-Brexit "returns agreement" as part of Britain's efforts to stem the flow of illegal immigrants.
Von der Leyen's right-hand man Björn Seibert, who has worked with her since her disastrous tenure as German defence minister, met Sir Tim Barrow, national security adviser to the British Cabinet Office earlier this year.
Barrow wrote in the memo that Seibert, who holds the title of head of cabinet for the unelected EU Commission, "stressed that the Commission is not open to a UK-EU readmissions agreement."
But Brussels denied that report of the meeting on Monday evening. "Mr Siebert never said what it is claimed," insisted a European Commission spokesman.
More than 100,000 people have been trafficked to the UK since 2018, on flimsy and overloaded rubber boats across the often-treacherous waters of the English Channel and North Sea.
Conservative backbench MP Danny Kruger said the impasse showed the need for the UK to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and its Strasbourg-based court.
"We have now tried legal efforts, technical fixes, and international diplomacy in an attempt to stop the boats within the confines of European human rights law," Kruger said. "If the EU won't consider a returns agreement, we will have no choice but to take back full control of our legal sovereignty."
Von der Leyen was treated to a royal audience with British King Charles III in February after agreeing a truce with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on the application of the contentious Northern Ireland Protocol to the UK's withdrawal agreement with the EU.
Sunak has pledged to "stop the boats" as one of his five promises in a bid to win back electoral support ahead of a general election, expected at some point in 2024.
A shortage of accommodation for illegal immigrants who subsequently claim political asylum has seen the government pay to house them in hotels — including one on a barge in Portland harbour in Dorset — and even convert disused RAF airfields into what former home secretary Priti Patel described this week as "migrant camps."
Last November, British Home Secretary Suella Braverman struck a deal with France that would see the UK pay its neighbour to increase patrols of the coast to catch people-trafficking gangs before they set off.