May: Asylum seekers rescued from Med should be sent home
HOME secretary Theresa May last night put Britain at loggerheads with the EU by indicating migrants rescued from the Mediterranean should be forcibly sent home.
Writing in The Times today, Mrs May said a quota forcing European countries to accept a share of migrants would only encourage callous people traffickers - causing more migrants to embark on the perilous sea crossing that has cost thousands of lives.
It comes after EU plans to make Britain take 60,000 asylum seekers collapsed last night following a stand- off with the new Tory government.
European Commission leaders were forced into the humiliating climbdown after pressing the UK to take refugees flooding into Europe from across the Mediterranean. Spokesman Natasha Bertaud conceded Britain, Ireland and Denmark had exemptions on edicts relating to asylum and immigration.
She said: ‘The UK will not be bound by rules and laws to be proposed under European Agenda for Migration unless it opts-in.’
Earlier this week – In the wake of 1, 00 people dying trying to get across the Mediterranean already this year – Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission disclosed plans for a new system of ‘fair and balanced participation of all member states’ at times of ‘mass influx’ of refugees.
And Brussels was today due to propose a policy of quotas to distribute migrants fairly among EU member states
But in the face of opposition led by Mrs May, the Commission admitted targets could be impossible to impose.’ She has insisted the UK will only take refugees on a voluntary basis – arguing that many new arrivals are economic migrants rather than people fleeing wars in Libya and Syria.
And today she emphasised her stance, writing: ‘I disagree with the suggestion by the EU’s high representative Federica Mogherini that “no migrants” intercepted at sea should be “sent back against their will”.
‘Such an approach would only act as a pull factor across the Mediterranean - and encourage more people to put their lives at risk.’