Starmer
reveals plans to send refused asylum seekers to overseas ‘return hubs’
PM proposes
use of third countries during visit to Albania, which rules out role in any
such UK scheme
Aletha Adu,
Rajeev Syal and Peter Walker
Thu 15 May
2025 18.21 BST
Plans to
send refused asylum seekers to “return hubs” in third countries have been
announced by Keir Starmer on a trip to Albania during which the Balkan country
ruled out participating in the scheme.
The prime
minister flew to Tirana to confirm the UK was seeking to send people whose
asylum claims had been turned down to foreign detention centres once they had
exhausted all avenues of appeal.
The
proposals risked being overshadowed by remarks from the Albanian prime
minister, Edi Rama, who used a joint press conference with Starmer to highlight
his country’s refusal to engage in such negotiations while it was trying to set
up a similar scheme with Italy.
On Wednesday
night, the Times reported that Albania was one of the UK’s preferred options
for a hub.
The
Conservatives claimed Starmer’s trip and policy announcement had not gone to
plan and had been exposed by Rama’s remarks.
Chris Philp,
the shadow home secretary, said: “This trip is an embarrassment. Starmer jetted
off and now the Albanian prime minister has made clear that there will be no UK
return hubs in Albania. So, what was the point of this entire visit?”
British
officials had hoped to establish return hubs in the western Balkans, with
Albania previously seen as a potential partner.
Starmer told
GB News that officials had begun formal negotiations with potential host
countries but he refused to reveal which ones.
“What now we
want to do and are having discussions of, talks 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,” he said.
If
established, the return hubs will be used to process asylum seekers who have
lost their paperwork or who are considered to be trying to frustrate their
deportation.
Downing
Street confirmed the plan but gave few other details. Starmer’s official
spokesperson said: “We are having formal discussions with partners across
Europe on the prospects of collaborating on return hubs. Return hubs are
targeted at failed asylum seekers who have exhausted all legal routes to remain
in the UK but are currently here, costing millions of taxpayers.”
He said the
aim was to focus on asylum seekers whose legal routes had ended but were using
“stalling tactics”, which he said included saying they had lost their
documentation, or who were starting a family.
Removing
people to their home countries was difficult under such circumstances, the
spokesperson said, but there were fewer legal obstacles to taking them to a
third country where the processing could continue.
Rama said he
would not try to establish a deal with the UK because he was already engaged in
a similar process with Italy. “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,” Rama said.
Italy has
two detention centres in Albania to process refused asylum seekers, with 40
people having been sent to the centres so far despite a number of legal
challenges.
Starmer’s
spokesperson rejected the idea that Rama’s remarks had been a surprise, saying
the PM and his officials knew beforehand that Albania had no interest in
hosting a UK return hub.
Asked if it
was peculiar to make such an announcement in Albania, when the country was not
part of the plans, he rejected this: “The prime minister was making a visit in
relation to illegal migration. I think it is entirely relevant.”
Enver
Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “Threatening to
detain people in countries they’ve never set foot in causes fear and panic,
leading to low rates of compliance. The government’s approach to returns must
be based on evidence if it’s going to work and it is clear that the most
effective returns systems are not punitive but orderly and humane.”
This week
the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats passed 12,000 for the
year to date, putting 2025 on course to be a record year for such crossings.
In March,
the EU announced it had approved of member states pursuing the approach of
return hubs. The Netherlands is in negotiations with Uganda about such a
possibility.
The UN
refugee agency has also endorsed the idea of return hubs, which is significant
given that the UN intervened against the Conservative government’s Rwanda
scheme, which led to it being ruled unlawful.
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