JASON GROVES: It was 22C in Tirana, but decidedly frosty as PM's humiliation became clear

Daily Mail​

15-05-2025

Keir Starmer 's plan to develop migrant 'return hubs' in the Western Balkans was drawn up in tight secrecy.
Labour strategists had hoped to generate the kind of big news splash that would cut through to voters and convince them he is finally getting serious about the crisis in the Channel.
Downing Street officials were so nervous about the news dribbling out early and lessening the impact of the story that they deliberately misled travelling journalists, telling them that the issue was 'not on the table' during the trip to Albania.
That meant that, while it was 22C in the capital, Tirana, yesterday, the mood was already decidedly frosty.
Unfortunately, the cloak of secrecy appears to have extended to Albanian prime minister Edi Rama, who vetoed his country's involvement in the scheme just an hour after it was announced.
At a humiliating joint press conference with Sir Keir, Mr Rama said he had been 'very clear' with anyone who had bothered to ask that a similar deal with Italy had been a 'one-off'.
Sir Keir was then forced to tell reporters that he would only announce the countries interested in the deal 'at the appropriate time'.
The sense of farce was heightened when the PM failed to confirm he would be staying on to fight the next election – prompting a flurry of speculation about his future before officials managed to manufacture an opportunity for him to answer the question again so he could 'clarify' his intention to stay on.
Government officials tried to play down the fiasco last night, saying they had never planned to do a deal with Albania.
Which rather raises the question of why Sir Keir chose to become the first British PM to visit the Balkan state to announce the plan.
Officials insist other countries in the Balkans and beyond remain interested in the idea of taking failed asylum seekers in return for cash. We shall see.
But in any case, the plan for return hubs looks likely to have only a marginal impact on the problem at hand.
The last government's Rwanda scheme, which was frustrated by Sir Keir at every step, was designed to break the link between getting on a dinghy in France and building a new life in Britain.
Channel migrants would have been flown to Africa with no opportunity ever to claim asylum in the UK.
The new proposal is much more modest. Asylum seekers will be deported to a 'return hub' only when they have exhausted all possible avenues for appeal – a process that can take months or even years.
Those from countries which are not deemed safe, such as Afghanistan, will not be involved because there is no prospect of them ever being sent home.
The scheme has some potential merit. Those failed asylum seekers who seek to frustrate their removal through tactics such as claiming to have lost their identity documents, could be removed to a third country while the issue was sorted out.
This would deny them the opportunity to try to find a new way of staying in the UK, such as marrying or fathering a child.
But the number of cases is likely to be a drop in the ocean even if it ever gets off the ground.
Even this moves Sir Keir well outside his comfort zone. The reality of trying to calm public anger over the Channel crisis has forced the former human rights lawyer to contemplate ideas he would once have condemned out of hand.
But on the evidence of yesterday's embarrassment in Tirana, he has a long way to go yet before he can present a sceptical electorate with a convincing plan.