The UK is in talks with “a number of countries” about sending failed asylum seekers to return hubs in third countries, Sir Keir Starmer has said.
The prime minister confirmed the plan at a press conference alongside his Albanian counterpart Edi Rama in the country’s capital, Tirana.
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Sir Keir described the hubs as a “really important innovation” that complements other measures the government is taking to crack down on criminal smuggling gangs.
“We are in talks with a number of countries about return hubs,” he said.
“At the appropriate time, I’ll be able to give you further details in relation to it.”
Sir Keir did not say which countries he is in talks with, but Mr Rama suggested he is not open to hosting UK detention centres as Albania has already signed a deal for Italy to build them there.
“We have been asked by several countries if we were open to it, and we said no, because we are loyal to the marriage with Italy and the rest is just love,” he said.
Earlier, Sir Keir told GB News that the hubs would be for people whose asylum applications have failed and they have exhausted all avenues to appeal.
This is a different concept to the Tories’ failed Rwanda scheme which Sir Keir scrapped almost immediately after winning the general election.
The Rwanda plan involved deporting all people who arrived in the UK by unauthorised means to the east African country, where their asylum claims would be processed for them to settle there, not in Britain.
Return hubs would be an offshore location to hold migrants set to be returned to their home countries and who have no chance of remaining in the UK.
The Rwanda scheme failed to get off the ground before the Tories lost the election, despite millions spent, after it was repeatedly challenged in the courts.
Shadow home office minister Chris Philp today insisted it would have acted as a deterrent, whereas the return hubs are a “con on the British public”.
He said: “It’s better than nothing but it won’t work because most of the people crossing the Channel are of nationalities where they will get their asylum claims granted.
“It’s a con on the British public for Keir Starmer to claim these return hubs will have any practical effect.”
Mr Philp also called it a “slap in the face” and “humiliation” for the prime minister that Albania has already rejected the idea, saying he’d travelled all that way to “announce a few tweaks” to a cooperation deal that was put in place by the Conservatives.
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