Rishi Sunak has said the UK is “not interested” in accepting asylum seekers back from the Republic as he is “focused” on sending migrants to Rwanda on flights within months.
The British prime minister’s comments on Monday came amid concerns the UK’s new legislation on sending migrants to Rwanda was prompting a flow of asylum seekers across the Irish border.
The Irish government recently announced emergency laws to return asylum seekers who had entered the Republic back to the UK, but Mr Sunak, speaking to ITV news on Monday, said “we’re not interested in that”.
“We’re not going to accept returns from the EU via Ireland when the EU doesn’t accept returns back to France where illegal migrants are coming from,” the prime minister said.
He said there were no negotiations taking place with the EU, adding: “I’m focused on getting our Rwanda scheme up and running.”
However, speaking at Monday’s meeting of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said there was a “joint commitment” between London and Dublin to “protect the common travel area from abuse”.
“We will obviously monitor all this very closely and continue to work with the Irish Government on these matters,” Mr Heaton-Harris said.
Mr Heaton-Harris said there was “no way that we would want to upset our relationship with Ireland”.
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The Northern Ireland Secretary met with Tánaiste and foreign affairs minister Micheál Martin at the conference, and said he was “comfortable” with Dublin’s proposed legislation to return asylum seekers to the UK.
Mr Martin said the legislation would restore the Republic’s position to that before a recent Irish High Court ruling that the UK was no longer a safe third country for migrants to be sent to because of the Rwanda law.
Taoiseach Simon Harris had said on Sunday that the Republic would not offer a “loophole for anybody else’s migration challenges”.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Mr Heaton-Harris, Mr Martin said: “These agreements have to be mutual. No one country can say we are sending (people) back if there’s not a reciprocal agreement, and it works both ways.”
