Starmer Denies Labour Will Join EU Refugee Quota Scheme

Labour Leader Starmer Rejects UK Participation in EU Refugee Quota Scheme

September 17, 2023 TruthUSA

The opposition leader accused the government of ‘pumping out complete garbage’ after ministers said he will let the UK become a ‘dumping ground’ for EU migrants

The claim that Labour is planning to join the EU’s refugee quota scheme is “complete nonsense,” party leader Sir Keir Starmer said on Sunday.

It follows Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s accusation that Labour was planning to let the UK become a “dumping ground” for 100,000 migrants from the EU each year after Sir Keir told The Times of London a “quid pro quo” arrangement of migrant quotas “would be part of any discussions and negotiations with Europe.”

Speaking to Sky News’s “Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips” programme, the Labour leader said he wasn’t talking about joining the scheme, and accused ministers of “pumping out complete garbage this week in terms of the numbers that they are suggesting.”

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“There is obviously an EU quota system for EU members. Well, it’s obvious we are not an EU member. We will not be part of that. We are not an EU member. This is why what the government’s saying, it’s been complete garbage,” he said.

“And even that scheme within the EU is not working. I’ve been discussing that with EU leaders up here. That scheme itself isn’t really working very well. So the idea that we’re going to join the EU scheme on quotas is complete nonsense. We’re not an EU member and that wasn’t what I was talking about,” he added.

Sir Keir made the remarks after he was asked about the comment of an EU diplomat, who told The Times of London earlier this week that the Labour leader is “deluded” to think the bloc can “come to his rescue” when its member states are “under much more pressure on asylum and migration than Britain.”

A group of people thought to be migrants crossing the Channel in a small boat traveling from the coast of France and heading in the direction of Dover, Kent, on Aug. 29, 2023. (PA Media)

The opposition leader said “you don’t need a returns agreement to return people to their country of origin” and that Labour will also seek to strike returns deals with third countries, saying he won’t pretend they are not helpful.

But he dismissed the government’s measures such as the Rwanda plan as “gimmicks,” saying “The only person [who] has gone to Rwanda is the Home Secretary.”

Setting out Labour’s plan to tackle illegal immigration earlier this week, Sir Keir said he wants to change the law so serious crime prevention orders, which are currently used to target terror suspects, can be used against people-traffickers, which, like terrorist operations, are often cross-border.

Pressed on whether his plan includes detaining people smugglers without charge for 28 days as terror suspects can be, Sir Keir said it’s not about the detention powers, but rather the power to freeze assets and restrict movements.

Sir Keir was in Canada on

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