TIRANA: The UK is in talks with different countries about setting up “return hubs” for failed asylum seekers, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Thursday on a visit to Albania seeking to bring down immigration.
The UK leader is under pressure to reduce immigration and cut the number of irregular migrants arriving on UK shores, many in small boats, amid the rising popularity of the hard-right, anti-immigrant Reform Party.
“We are in talks with a number of countries about return hubs,” Starmer told a joint news conference with his newly reelected Albanian counterpart Edi Rama.
Starmer declined to explain how the hubs would work in practice or say with which countries he was in talks. But he said his new Labour government had been left a “mess” by the previous Conservative leadership, which he said had failed to process asylum claims.
The prime minister´s official spokesman said: “This will basically apply to people who have exhausted all legal routes to remain in the UK but are attempting to stall, using various tactics -- whether it´s losing their paperwork or using other tactics to frustrate their removal.”
Last July, Starmer´s Labour government abandoned a scheme put in place by the Conservatives to deport undocumented migrants to Rwanda. Rama said hosting a new UK return hub in Albania was not on the table, adding that an earlier deal with Italy had been a “one-off”.