Rishi rejects Irish plea on migrants
UK won’t take back anyone fleeing Rwanda threat, says PM
THE Prime Minister has ruled out Britain taking back asylum seekers who cross the border into Ireland to avoid being sent to Rwanda.
Rishi Sunak yesterday said he had ‘no interest’ in a new returns agreement with Dublin given that France will not accept migrants who cross the Channel to England in dinghies.
He added that he was not pursuing a wider deal with the European Union either, despite his Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron claiming last week that it was easier to deal with illegal immigration before Brexit.
The PM’s tough words came after Irish ministers claimed migrants fearful of being deported to Africa under the UK’s new law are seeking sanctuary in Ireland instead.
They said as many as 80 per cent of its asylum claims this year have been made by people crossing from Northern Ireland.
The Irish government is also introducing legislation this week to declare that Britain is a safe country for asylum seekers to be sent back to after a High Court judgment struck down a previous agreement.
Meanwhile new images revealed a ‘tent city’ of homeless migrants near the International Protection Office in Dublin, which deals with refugee claims, in a sign of the scale of the challenge facing the Irish government.
Asked by ITV News if he could get a returns scheme with Ireland, Mr Sunak insisted: ‘I’m not interested in that.
‘ We’re not going to accept returns from the EU via Ireland when the EU doesn’t accept returns back to France where illegal
migrants are coming from. Of course we’re not going to do that. I’m determined to get our Rwanda scheme up and running because I want a deterrent.’
Asked if there were any negotiations being held with Brussels, he said: ‘No, no, no, no. I’m focused squarely on getting our Rwanda scheme up and running. I want
the deterrent, which will say that if you come to our country illegally, you will not be able to stay and you will be removed to your own country if it’s safe or Rwanda.’
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told reporters: ‘Even if Ireland was to pass legislation, it is up to the UK Government to
decide who we do and don’t accept into the country. Clearly, we aren’t going to start accepting returns from the EU just as the EU doesn’t accept asylum returns from the UK to France.’
The row overshadowed a meeting yesterday of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference in London between Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris and Ireland’s deputy prime minister Micheal Martin.
At a press conference afterwards, Mr Heaton-Harris insisted the UK Government did not want to ‘upset our relationship with Ireland’ over asylum seekers.
He added Britain was committed to protecting the integrity of the Common Travel Area, the long-standing arrangement that allows British and Irish citizens to move between the two countries.
Asked if he had anticipated the effect of the Rwanda plan on the Irish border, Mr Heaton-Harris said: ‘It was always going to be the case, we believed as a government, that our Rwanda policy would act as a deterrent for people coming to this country illegally.’
But he admitted: ‘I think we are slightly surprised this manifested itself so quickly after the Act became law.’ Mr Heaton-Harris also said he was ‘comfortable’ with the Irish government’s new legislation, saying it simply resets a ‘glitch’ in its law.
Mr Martin was asked for evidence to back up the claim made by Irish justice minister Helen McEntee that the proportion of asylum seekers coming from Northern Ireland was ‘higher than 80 per cent’.
He said: ‘It’s not statistical, it’s not a database or evidence base, but it is very clear from the presentations of migrants that there’s a change in the nature of where migrants have come from.’
‘Policy would act as deterrent ’