The UK will begin talks to send failed asylum seekers to foreign countries while they await deportation, Sir Keir Starmer has said in his latest crackdown on illegal immigration.
The prime minister was speaking during a visit to Albania, a trip designed to forge closer co-operation on tackling migration.
Sir Keir told GB News: “What now we want to do and are having discussions of is return hubs – which is where someone has been through the system in the UK, they need to be returned and we have to make sure they’re returned effectively and we’ll do that, if we can, through return hubs.”
But he said there was no “silver bullet” to solve the problem.
The announcement comes amid rising pressure on the government after the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats passed 12,000 for the year, putting 2025 on course to be a record.
The move comes just a year after the Labour government scrapped the Conservatives’ controversial Rwanda scheme, which would have sent asylum seekers on a one-way trip to the African country, even if their claims were later successful, just days after entering office.
The plan would have involved asylum seekers who arrived in the UK via irregular routes.
The government would not comment on which countries would be involved in the talks, but the subject is understood to not be on the agenda for the Prime Minister’s meetings in Tirana on Thursday.
Sir Keir said return hubs would not in themselves halt the boats.
But he said that, combined with other measures designed to tackle smuggling gangs and return those with no right to be in the UK, it would “allow us to bear down on this vile trade and make sure that we stop those people crossing the Channel”.
Italy currently operates a similar programme with Albania, sending failed asylum seekers to the country while they await deportation.
The Italian scheme had been intended to provide offshore processing for migrants, but that plan has been held up by legal action.
In Tirana, the PM is also expected to announce further cooperation with Albania on tackling illegal migration and organised crime, alongside his Albanian counterpart Edi Rama.
The latest developments come just days after the PM used a dramatic early morning press conference on Monday to unveil a new crackdown to curb rising migration numbers, in which he said the UK risks becoming “island of strangers” as a result of migration.
The prime minister faced backlash over the language, which was compared to Enoch Powell’s infamous 1968 “rivers of blood” speech, which whipped up a frenzy of anti-immigration hatred across the UK.
The government has been accused of attempting to pander to Nigel Farage in its harder line stance on immigration after Reform UK took nearly 700 seats at the local elections after a surge in the polls.
Among the measures announced were a ban on the recruitment of care workers from overseas, increased English language requirements for immigrants and the tightening of access to skilled worker visas.
Sir Keir’s language marked an extraordinary turnaround in the last five years from when he was Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow immigration minister promoting open borders and from three years ago when he claimed that those raising immigration as an issue were “racist”.
It follows a steady creep to the right on migration from Labour, with the government using increasingly tough rhetoric and publishing videos of immigration raids targeting illegal workers.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow…
