A war of words has erupted between Britain and the EU following claims that the bloc has rejected Rishi Sunak’s plea for a post-Brexit asylum seeker returns deal.
On Tuesday morning it was claimed that a senior European Commission official told the UK’s national security adviser earlier this year that there was no prospect of such an agreement.
But an EU Commission spokesperson rubbished the reports as “not correct”.
Return agreements are viewed by some as key to solving the Channel crisis and the prime minister hopes to strike a deal with the EU that would allow Britain to return people to European countries where they have previously claimed asylum or have links to.
The Times reported that notes of a meeting between German politician Bjoern Seibert, Ursula Von der Leyen’s head of cabinet, and Sir Tim Barrow, Britain’s national security adviser and former ambassador to the EU, made clear the that the commission was not interested in a deal.
According to the Daily Mail, an internal British government memo read: “[Mr Seibert] stressed that the commission is not open to a UK-EU readmissions agreement.”
But the EU has denied the reports. A spokesperson said: “The report is not correct, [Mr Seibert] never said that. It was an internal meeting and I checked directly with the source and he never said that.”
Rishi Sunak and Ursula von der Leyen
Will Quince, the UK’s health minister, said the UK was taking a number of steps to tackle illegal immigration.
“This a hugely complex and challenging issue and one the prime minister has put as part of his five priorities and I know that he and his home secretary are determined to address it and stop the boats,” he told Sky News.
“As a health minister, I won’t have been over any of the details of the negotiations with the European Union. But if you look at the details of the discussions that we do have with Turkey, with Albania and indeed the French, they are starting to bear fruit and then more widely if you look at the deterrent factor, again that is making a difference.”
The UK already has “extensive” returns agreements with Iraq, Albania, Vietnam and Pakistan – described by the government as “four high volume countries for small boat arrivals”. A deal was also signed with Georgia in January.
Data published earlier this month, however, showed that Afghans now make up the biggest nationality of small boat arrivals, at 20 per cent.
Some 898 asylum seekers have arrived in the UK from the war-torn country so far this year, according to Home Office figures up to the end of March.
Britain also has a controversial plan to send asylum seekers who arrive by small boat to Rwanda, although it has been held up by legal challenges.
A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover on a Border Force vessel on July 21 2023
A deal with the EU is seen as important because of the large number of people making the treacherous journey across the Channel from France.
French president Emmanuel Macron had already rejected a bilateral deal with the UK and insisted that any agreement must be made on an EU-wide basis.
An agreement between the two parties would also require Britain to share Europe’s burden of resettling hundreds of thousands of migrants entering the bloc through irregular means.
At a summit of the Council of Europe in Reykjavik, Iceland, in May, Mr Sunak appeared to win the backing of Von der Leyen for a deal that would see the two parties work more closely together on illegal migration, including a returns deal.
Labour has also said it will seek to negotiate a new returns agreement with the EU if it wins the next election.
The fresh war of words broke out just days after six people died after their boat capsized in the Channel after setting off from France. Dozens of people were rescued in an operation involving French and British authorities after a boat got into difficulty in the water on Saturday morning.
Accounts from survivors of the shipwreck said at least 65 people took to the sea in the boat that sank and about 58 people were rescued, with several brought off lifeboats on stretchers.
Asli Tatliadim, head of campaigns at Refugee Action, said the incident had been “predictable and inevitable” because the government’s “hostile deterrent policies are designed to keep people out and not keep people safe”.
A UK government spokesperson said the deaths were “devastating” but a reminder of the “extreme” dangers of crossing the Channel and how it is vital to “break the people smugglers’ business model and stop the boats.”
Some 111 people were detected crossing the English Channel in small boats on Monday, the Home Office said. The cumulative number of arrivals by small boats in 2023 now stands at a provisional total of 16,790. Total arrivals last year were 45,755.
