Masked rioters tore through Belfast on Tuesday night, fuelled by anger at a stabbing allegedly carried out by a Sudanese asylum seeker.
As the violence broke out, an EU migration drive was poised to make the UK more attractive to illegal immigrants and leave Sir Keir Starmer with few options.
Protesters targeted migrants’ homes and businesses in the Northern Irish capital, burning a supermarket and several vehicles in what Sinn Féin called a night of “thuggery”.
The stabbing that prompted the violence threw the spotlight back onto the migration back door to Britain through Northern Ireland known as the “Irish route”.
The asylum seeker suspected of the attack was said to have travelled from his native Sudan to Paris and then to Dublin, before taking a bus to Belfast in February 2023.
Fires were started in Belfast during an anti-immigration demonstration – PA Wire
In response to increased migration and a resurgent Right, Europe is imposing harsh rules that come into force on Friday, giving member states greater powers to process asylum claims and deport failed claimants faster.
In return, countries must accept a quota of genuine refugees resettled from border states such as Italy and Greece.
Migrants who have either illegally entered Europe and want to avoid deportation under the enhanced rules, or are looking to avoid detection upon entry, may look to Britain, which has no returns deals and weaker defences. One such weakness is the soft border with Ireland.
Ireland has an opt-out for EU asylum rules but entered the new European pact to drive down its asylum applications, which hit a high of 18,651 in 2024.
Many EU governments are already cracking down. In March, Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, said he wanted 80 per cent of the 900,000 Syrian refugees living in Germany to go home in the next three years.
Brussels has been busy building “Fortress Europe”. Illegal border crossings are down by 40 per cent this year, but deporting failed asylum seekers remains a problem.
Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen demanded tougher rules. On June 1, a deal was struck allowing EU capitals to legally set up Rwanda-style offshore deportation camps to return failed asylum seekers.
This poses a problem for Sir Keir Starmer.
Since Brexit, the UK has had no EU-wide legal method to return small-boat migrants to the Continent. This legal arbitrage is already a pull factor for migrants looking to exploit loopholes and weaker deterrents.
Last year, more than 41,400 migrants crossed the English Channel, the second-highest annual total on record.
The European Commission may try to push Sir Keir to agree to take migrants as part of continental quotas – Thierry Monasse/Getty Images
In July last year, France and Britain agreed a pilot “one-in, one-out” scheme for small-boat migrants, but it has so far had a negligible impact.
In 2024, the Irish government blamed the Tories’ ditched Rwanda Plan for a surge of asylum claims in Dublin.
Ministers claimed that 80 per cent of its migrants had arrived from Northern Ireland, fleeing the scheme that was eventually frustrated because of human rights laws.
The boot is now on the other foot.
But Sir Keir’s options are limited, as he cannot simply close the border or introduce checks on the frontier with Ireland as a result of the Good Friday Agreement, which gradually removed border infrastructure.
Its return would be viewed as a threat to the peace process, and checkpoints could become targets.
The invisible border is a helpful sticking plaster for a peace settlement that allows people in Northern Ireland to consider themselves Irish, British or both.
Traditional checks such as passport stamps at the border would remove the fig leaf that allows both unionists and nationalists to accept the end of the Troubles.
Brexiteers and unionists still accuse Ireland of weaponising the border during the Brexit negotiations.
The deal created the UK’s first land border with the EU, which meant checks were needed to ensure goods adhered to Single Market rules.
Successive British governments took the threat to the peace process seriously enough to agree to the Windsor Framework.
This created the Irish Sea border with checks being carried out on British goods entering Northern Ireland, but ensured the land border with Ireland stayed open.
Sir Keir would jeopardise his hopes of an EU reset deal if he introduced traditional border checks. They would bring back bad memories of Boris Johnson’s threats to rip up the Brexit deal during his premiership and end would end Sir Keir’s hopes of closer ties with Brussels.
He also cannot introduce passport checks on travel from Northern Ireland to Great Britain without enraging unionists who already fear the Brexit border has loosened their ties to the UK and made a united Ireland more likely.
Could the Prime Minister use the reset negotiations to pitch for an EU-wide migrant return deal?
He could expect some support from France and Germany, but there is not enough political will in the EU to start taking illegal migrants back into Europe from Britain.
British politicians have struggle to combat the arrival of migrants on small boat – Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Any such deal would hang on Sir Keir agreeing to European Commission migrant quotas, which would require lengthy negotiations and could be politically suicidal.
A more realistic goal is to secure language promising more intelligence sharing and co-operation on migration before the UK-EU summit in Brussels, which is expected next month.
Northern Ireland and Ireland are both struggling to adapt to the challenges of modern migration.
It is the third summer in a row that there have been race riots in Northern Ireland. Asylum centres have been regularly attacked in the Republic and there were riots in Dublin in 2023.
Selective but not routine passport checks are carried out in the Common Travel Area (made up of the UK, Ireland, Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey). There are provisions allowing for the return of migrants, but these appear increasingly outdated.
If London and Dublin want to preserve and protect a Common Travel Area that has lasted more than a century, they need to find a way to ensure its safeguards are still fit for purpose.