The Tory government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has only managed to deport two illegal boat migrants back to the European Union over the past year, as the bloc continues to refuse to negotiate a post-Brexit returns policy and the British government refuses to adopt a ‘turn back the boats’ approach to the crisis in the English Channel.
While over 45,000 illegal migrants have arrived on British shores since last year, the government could only successfully return a total of two illegals back to the continent during the same time span, The Telegraph reports.
In 2021, the post-Brexit government in Westminster amended immigration law to allow the Home Office to classify alleged asylum seekers as “inadmissible” if they had travelled through a safe country prior to reaching the UK. This would apply to almost all Channel migrants, given that the overwhelming majority set sail from the coasts of France, a safe, first-world, EU nation.
However, since June of last year, the government has failed to designate any illegals as inadmissible and only successfully deported two migrants back to the EU, Home Office figures showed. In total, since the updated rules were introduced, only 83 asylum seekers were given an inadmissible decision, and only 23 were sent back to Europe, while 93,500 illegals arrived.
Prior to leaving the European Union, the UK was a part of the Dublin regulations that govern the return of migrants to countries within the bloc. However, following Brexit, Britain left the scheme and the EU has so far been unwilling to negotiate a returns policy.
Conservatives have accused the French government of Emmanuel Macron of holding up talks, claiming that he is seeking to punish the UK for leaving the EU, while at the same time unloading the cost of migrants onto the British.
This comes despite Sunak’s government agreeing to a £500 million handout to Paris to supposedly increase efforts to clamp down on people smuggling gangs operating on French beaches. During the negotiations for the payoff, President Macron steadfastly refused to include a returns policy part of the deal, dubiously claiming that it must be negotiated at the EU level.
Despite the intransigence of the Europeans on the issue of returns, London has so far been unwilling to use the Border Force — or indeed the Royal Navy — to return migrant boats to the French coast, rather than escort them to Dover as is typically the case.
The government has rested its hopes for solving the crisis on the long-awaited scheme to send illegals to Rwanda to have their asylum claims processed offshore and therefore disincentivise migrants from attempting to enter the country illegally.
The plan has been held up in legal limbo since last year and will not be decided upon by the UK Supreme Court until October. It is unclear if the court will side with the government, however, given that British courts have a pattern of ruling in favour of illegal migrants, foreign criminals, and even terrorists in deportation battles.
Tony Smith, The former head of the Border Force, Tony Smith said that the European Commission should be “called out” over its unwillingness to craft a new returns policy with the UK, saying: “We have got to talk and work together on this if we are going to stop the boats. Rwanda is not going to be enough on its own.”
Rishi Sunak, for his part, said that his government is still “open to working” with Brussels on a deal, but said: “I never said it was easy. I said it would take time.”
“There is no simple, single solution that will solve it. We are working on a range of different things, for example, the deal with Albania that has returned 3,000 illegal migrants to Albania.”