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Sir Keir Starmer admits Labour’s small boats plan could open the door to more asylum seekers from the EU
LABOUR'S plan to tackle illegal channel crossings could open the door to more asylum seekers from the EU.
A massive battle of the boats erupted after the Labour boss admitted he would seek a return agreement with Brussels for failed asylum seekers in the UK if he was PM.
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In a sit down interview with The Sun, Sir Keir Starmer said he wants to strike a small boat returns deal with the EU as part of his wider plan to solve the crisis in the Channel.
Such a deal would allow Britain to send small boat arrivals back to the European states they came over from.
But in return critics say it would require the Home Office to take in a share of asylum seekers from the EU.
Speaking in The Hague to The Sun's Political Editor Harry Cole, Sir Keir said: "There needs to be a returns agreement.
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"That will have to be negotiated. The PM himself said that he wants a returns agreement.
"In opposition I'm not in a position to negotiate that, nor have I spoken to anyone about that."
But he would not rule the UK offering to take claimants that have arrived in other parts of the continent as a part of a “burden sharing pact.”
In return Labour would seek new sweeping cross-border data and crime fighting arrangements and swift deportations from the UK.
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The Prime Minister and senior Cabinet colleagues seized on Labour’s long-awaited plan by claiming it would lead to another 100,000 migrants in the UK each year.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman said it risked turning Britain into a “dumping ground” for the EU’s unwanted migrants.
Hitting back at Tory claims that would lead to the UK forced to take 13 per cent of all EU arrivals - due to our population size compared to the rest of the bloc - Starmer said: “It’s embarrassing that they are pumping out this nonsense.”
But asked directly if he ruled out a burden sharing agreement, he would only say: “I think there needs to be a returns agreement, that would need to be negotiated.
“The returns agreement would only be to return people to the EU."
Speaking in Holland, the one time arch remainer denied he was going “cap in the hand to the EU” saying that there would be “no going back into the EU, that’s not what this is about”.
But he insisted the price of any deal was yet to be discussed.
And he ducked and dived on whether he would offer to share the burden of migrants with the EU, saying only: “A returns agreement would be helpful, that would have to be negotiated.”
"In opposition I'm not in a position to negotiate that, nor have I spoken to anyone about that. I'm not talking about a returns agreement today. That is something to be separately negotiated,” he added.
Last night Sir Keir pledged to stop the boats by smashing the people smuggling trade.
Writing in The Sun, the Labour leader said he'd order British spooks from GCHQ to work with European crime fighters Europol to monitor gang plans.
The new “Security Agreement with Europe” is the opposition chief’s first major intervention on the illegal migration storm blighting Britain’s coast and hotels.
Sir Keir will pitch the idea at talks with French president Emanuel Macron in Paris next week.
Labour says it will fund the scheme with the money currently earmarked for the Rwanda deportation plan - that has yet to see a single channel migrant deported to the African state for processing.
Sir Keir told the Sun last night that his record as Britain’s chief prosecutor banging up drug dealers and terrorists means he is perfectly placed to tackle the boat crisis.
But Cabinet Ministers came out in their droves today to rubbish Labour's plan.
On a visit to Barnstaple in North Devon, PM Rishi Sunak raged: "Keir Starmer spent all of this year voting against our stop the boats bill, the toughest legislation that any government has passed to tackle illegal migration.
"His plans today seem to amount to saying that we might one day accept 100,000 EU migrants every year.
"That doesn't seem like a credible plan to me to stop the boats."
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Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick called Labour's proposals a "recipe for even more illegal migration".
He said: "Not content with voting against every one of our measures to stop the boats, Keir Starmer is now opening the door to taking over 100,000 illegal migrants from the safety of the EU."
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