PM to offer Ireland Rwanda deal
Sunak rejects Irish demand to take back asylum seekers after row over surge in arrivals from UK
DOWNING Street has offered Ireland the opportunity to join the Rwanda scheme, amid a row over asylum seekers fleeing the UK to the Republic.
No10 said it was open to exploring Ireland’s participation in the scheme after Irish ministers blamed the deterrent effect of deportation to Rwanda for the surge in asylum seekers arriving in Dublin from Britain.
Rishi Sunak has rejected demands by Simon Harris, the Irish prime minister, to take back the asylum seekers, unless the EU agrees to receive migrants who have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel.
A Downing Street source said: “If the Irish government believes the Rwanda plan is already having an effect, we can explore Ireland joining the Rwanda scheme. Many countries are looking at a third country now, which is why Sir Keir Starmer’s amnesty for 115,000 illegal immigrants a year is so shortsighted.”
Mr Sunak is relying on the Rwanda scheme to stop the flow of migrants across the Channel, and has made the policy a key dividing line with Labour who say they would axe the scheme. At least 100 migrants earmarked to be sent to Rwanda have already been detained.
However, new figures revealed a record 711 migrants crossed the Channel yesterday, the highest number on a single day so far this year. It takes this year’s total to 8,278, up 34 per cent on the same point last year. It comes as there were protests in London over the treatment of asylum seekers, with the Home Office forced to postpone the transfer of migrants from a hotel to the Bibby Stockholm barge after protesters disrupted their removal and slashed a coach’s wheels.
Downing Street is braced for criticism of Mr Sunak’s leadership following the results of yesterday’s local elections, which are expected to show heavy Tory Party losses.
The Anglo-irish row intensified on Wednesday after the Irish proposed redeploying 100 officers to the border area to stop asylum seekers fleeing the UK. Irish ministers have said that up to 90 per cent of asylum seekers who have entered the Republic this year came across the northern border.
Yesterday, it emerged that, amid the crisis, Irish ministers are considering making further cuts to support and benefits for Ukrainian refugees.
Ireland has a special legal right to opt out of EU migration and immigration rules, like Denmark, which has held talks with Rwanda about sending migrants to the east African state to have their asylum claims processed there. No 10 sources confirmed Mr Sunak was working on a “statement of intent” with like-minded countries like
‘If a flight to Rwanda... acts as a deterrent, those proposals should certainly be examined and quickly’
Italy and Denmark to explore “alternative and untested” schemes that would act as a deterrent to migrants. This includes deals where migrants’ claims are processed in third countries.
Both Mr Sunak and Mr Harris have claimed the apparent increase in migrants crossing to Ireland from the UK is evidence that even the threat of deportation to Rwanda is acting as a deterrent. Asylum seekers interviewed in Dublin by The Telegraph cited the prospect of removal to Rwanda as their reason for fleeing the UK.
Mr Harris has ordered his justice ministry to bring forward legislation to declare the UK a “safe” third country for asylum seekers, overturning an Irish high court judgement that ruled the UK was “unsafe” because of the risk of migrants being sent to Rwanda.
The new law – which mirrors Mr Sunak’s own Safety of Rwanda Act – is designed to remove the legal block that would prevent asylum seekers being sent back to the UK despite Mr Sunak’s refusal to accept them.
The Irish government has been contacted for comment, but Hermann Kelly, president of the Irish Freedom Party, said: “If a flight to Rwanda, or even a boat trip to Iceland acts as a deterrent, those proposals should certainly be examined and quickly.”
The UK Government is gearing up for multiple legal challenges to its Rwanda legislation from detained migrants as well as civil service unions.
The Telegraph can reveal that at least 100 migrants earmarked for deportation to Rwanda have been detained since Monday. They are being put in contact with lawyers to seek bail and challenge their removal, according to charities specialising in immigration detention.
The charity Care4calais said it had been contacted by 90 asylum seekers earmarked for deportation to Rwanda who have been detained this week. Another charity, BID, said it had been contacted by eight prospective deportees. They will be put in contact with lawyers who will seek bail ahead of the flights in nine to 11 weeks and prepare legal challenges on the basis that they could be at risk of “serious and irreversible harm” if removed to Rwanda.
THE Home Office has postponed the transfer of asylum seekers from a London hotel to the Bibby Stockholm barge after protesters slashed a coach’s wheels and disrupted their removal yesterday.
Immigration officers were forced to abandon attempts to transfer the migrants from the Best Western Hotel in Peckham, south London, after dozens of people wearing Covid face masks surrounded the vehicle, placed electric bikes under its front and rear wheels and punctured its tyres.
More than 100 Metropolitan Police officers were deployed to remove the protesters.
A total of 45 people were arrested after officers were assaulted while trying to prevent the coach from being obstructed.
The Home Office denounced the “intimidatory and aggressive” behaviour of the protesters. The slashed tyres meant the coach was unable to continue its journey, forcing the migrants to return to the hotel.
Other asylum seekers who were due to be picked up on the way by the coach were taken to the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, Dorset, after the Home Office organised alternative transport.
The Home Office is, however, understood to be intent to return to transfer the migrants to the Bibby barge as part of ministers’ pledge to reduce the £6million a day cost of housing asylum seekers in hotels.
Sharing a video of police moving protesters away from the coach, James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, tweeted: “Housing migrants in hotels costs the British taxpayer millions of pounds every day. We will continue to remove those with no right to be here, despite continued efforts by the Labour Party and a coalition of disparate student groups to stop us.”downing Street urged the protesters to allow immigration officers to get on with their duties.
“[The Prime Minister] would urge people to allow Home Office enforcement officers to carry out their duties,” a spokesman for No 10 said.
The protest comes as immigration enforcement officers have begun detaining the first migrants earmarked for removal to Rwanda ahead of flights scheduled for nine to 11 weeks’ time.
None of the asylum seekers being transferred faces removal to Rwanda and unlike those detained for the flights, will be free to come and go from the Bibby Stockholm.
The barge currently houses more than 300 migrants against a projected total of 430.
The protesters arrived by 7am, forming a human chain linking arms around the coach. Alex Shaw, of The Movement For Justice By Any Means Necessary, said: “We’re not letting it go until we get confirmation that the remaining asylum seekers who are due to go on the bus, their removal has been cancelled.”
Soas Detainee Support, a welfare group, issued a call for more people to help them stop the coach, but added that protesters were “determined” it would not.