Deborah Akinyosoye
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday said the UK would begin talks with other countries on “return hubs” for failed asylum seekers.
“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’ll do that, if we can, through return hubs,” Starmer told GB News television from Albania, where he is on an official visit.
Starmer is under pressure to cut the number of irregular migrants arriving on UK shores, many in small boats, amid the rising popularity of the hard-right and anti-immigrant Reform UK party.
Under Starmer’s Labour government, Britain last July abandoned a scheme to deport undocumented migrants to Rwanda.
Cracking down on irregular migrants had been set to top the agenda for Starmer’s two-day visit to the southeast European nation.
Earlier this week Starmer unveiled tough new immigration policies that include cutting overseas care workers, doubling the length of time before migrants can qualify for settlement in the country and new powers to deport foreign criminals.
The speech was widely seen as an attempt to fend off rising support for anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage’s hard-right Reform UK party, which made gains in local elections this month.
Labour vowed in its general election manifesto last year to significantly reduce net migration, which stood at 728,000 in the 12 months to last June.
It had peaked at 906,000 in 2023 after averaging 200,000 for most of the 2010s.
In addition to high levels of legal migration, the UK has also seen unprecedented numbers of irregular migrants.
More than 12,500 migrants have made the perilous Channel crossing so far this year, according to an AFP tally based on figures from the UK’s interior ministry.