The UK does not have access to international waters between it and the source country of asylum seekers,as Australia has with Indonesia,so it cannot tow the boats back to France or anywhere else.
Rather,it has reached for a Pacific-style solution,throwing huge sums of money at Rwanda to take unwanted migrants,in the hope this might break the people smugglers’ business model,which is essentially selling their passengers a pathway to British life.
The Rwanda solution is stillnot allowable under law,somethingconservative MPs are trying to change ahead of the next election. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s primary campaign slogan is “Stop the Boats”. Sound familiar?
Across the Channel,theEuropean Union is facing similar dilemmas.
The bloc has paid Tunisia to try to stop migrants leaving its shores for Italy. Italy’sright-wing leader Giorgia Meloni was elected on a platform of ending boat arrivals and is under pressure given thatthey have not stopped.
In the Netherlands,anti-immigration firebrandGeert Wilders,known as the “Dutch Donald Trump”,topped the poll in the November national election after posing as a moderate. He has previously advocated hardline policies that would make the Netherlands less open to Muslims and Islamic worship,and has agitated for his country to leave the EU.
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The Dutch election result sent shockwaves through Europe and in Brussels ahead of next year’s European parliamentary elections,when migration is expected to be a top,if notthe top,issue. And so this week the EU finallyagreed to some hardline solutions to deal with the mass migration challenge.
Under the deal,defacto border detention facilities will be set up to house migrants,including women and children,who arrive by boat (mostly across the Mediterranean and into Greece and Italy) while their claims are processed.
Countries not at the border will have a choice between accepting asylum seekers or paying into an EU fund. The agreement also sets out that claims of asylum will be processed within 12 weeks,but we know from experience that such timeframes are difficult to meet.
Meanwhile,French MPs havepassed their own hardline legislation which will introduce migration quotas and delay access to welfare benefits – including benefits for children and housing allowances – for non-EU migrants by five years.
The bill represents a policy victory for French President Emmanuel Macron – but could cause him political pain as his rival Marine Le Pen has labelled it “a great ideological victory” for her far-right party.
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