Starmer to cut visas for countries who fail to sign return agreements for illegal migrants
Keir Starmer has signalled a new hardline approach to tackling illegal immigration by vowing that countries who do not agree to 'returns agreements' will have their visas limited.
After the prime minister held talks at the G7 with Canada with French president Emmanuel Macro n, Italian PM Giorgia Meloni and German chancellor Friedrich Merz on the ongoing crisis, he revealed to journalists that he plans to step up efforts.
The readout from the meeting with President Macron talked about 'innovative approaches' to be adopted to stop the small boats.
Speaking to journalists, Sir Keir said: 'Well, on the innovative approaches - yes, we are looking at what further we can do. I think we need to strengthen our existing tools, but then go further and see what else we can do. And that is a piece of work we're looking at with the French in particular.'
He went on: 'We are looking at what we can do on returns agreements. We have done a number of bilateral returns agreements. So the question is, again, whether it is possible to go a bit beyond that. Including looking at this question of visas now and whether we can't be a bit smarter with the use of our visas in relation to countries that don't have a returns agreement with us.'
Asked if that meant fewer visas for countries which did not agree returns agreements of illegal migrants, he responded: 'It would be much more sort of transactional, if you like. Now, we're looking into it, but certainly I think there are areas like that that we should look more closely at.'
Currently countries with returns agreements with the UK are Albania, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Iraq, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Georgia, Somalia, Serbia and Algeria.
Sir Keir also denied that the reference to a deteriorating situation on the Channel with small boats was an admission of failure.
Recently defence secretary John Healey has hit out at the French over their failure to stop migrants getting on boats despite the UK paying £400m a year to France to try to stop the problem.
In recent days there have been reports of migrants wading up to their necks in water to board boats and avoid the police.
The prime minister conceded: 'There's a serious situation in relation to the channel crossings. And as I've said on a number of occasions, nobody should be making that crossing.
"It is a serious challenge that requires serious responses to it. We are working much more closely already with our French counterparts, in particular, so the Home Secretary and the interior minister working more closely than any interior minister and Home Secretary have before.
"As we're working with our German counterparts and Italians."
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