The previous Conservative government, and the MP for Croydon South, knew for more than five years that leaving the EU would make it more difficult to deal with asylum seekers – but that’s not what they said publicly
Chris Philp, the Croydon South MP and former Conservative government immigration minister, has known all along that Brexit has meant that Britain has lost control of its borders.
That’s according to Sky News, who last night broadcast a leaked recording of Philp, now the shadow Home Secretary, acknowledging that being outside of the European Union put Britain in a weaker position on immigration than previously.
Boris Johnson, together with Philp and the rest of the rabid right, had campaigned for Brexit claiming it would mean “taking back control”.
In fact, as Philp has admitted in a private online meeting, the opposite was always the case. Britain’s exit from the EU meant the end of UK participation in something called the Dublin agreement, or Dublin 3, which governs EU-wide asylum claims.
Being outside the EU meant that the UK “can’t any longer rely on sending people back to the place where they first claimed asylum”, Philp was recorded as saying to his meeting.
Under the EU’s Dublin regulation, people should be processed for asylum in the country at which they first entered the union. Britain is unable to participate in the Dublin agreement since its terms are only open to full members of the EU.
In the leaked recording from the Tory briefing meeting, Philp appeared to suggest the scale of the problem surprised those in the Johnson government.
Online troll: the shadow home secretary, Chris Philp
Perhaps under-occupied now he is out of government, Philp has taken on the role of online troll since the Conservatives were defeated at the General Election last July, posting almost daily tirades about small boats, Rwanda and paedophiles, often all in one tweet.
What he was recorded as saying at an internal Conservative Zoom meeting last month, ahead of the local elections, provides proof that he and the Tories knew that their Brexit stance would make dealing with immigration harder, rather than provide greater control.
“When we did check it out… [we] found that about half the people crossing the Channel had claimed asylum previously elsewhere in Europe,” Philp said in his meeting.
It now emerges that it has been Philp’s and his Tory government’s support of Brexit that has created a situation whereby none of these arrivals can lawfully be returned to France or other EU states.
Philp has been saying one thing in public, while knowing the opposite to be true, for at least five years.
In 2020, Philp said: “The Dublin regulations do have a number of constraints in them, which makes returning people who should be returned a little bit harder than we would like. Of course, come the January 1 [2021], we’ll be outside of those Dublin regulations and the United Kingdom can take a fresh approach.”
Since Brexit and the ending of the UK’s part of the Dublin Agreement, Britain has to negotiate individual bilateral returns agreements with other nations.
Last night, Sky News reported, “In the summer of 2020, Mr Johnson’s spokesman criticised the ‘inflexible and rigid’ Dublin regulations, suggesting the exit from this agreement would be a welcome post-Brexit freedom.
“Mr Philp’s comments suggest a different view in private.”
The latest admission came in a Tory Zoom briefing at the end of April, just ahead of the local elections. Philp was asked why countries like France continued to allow migrants to come to Britain.
“The migrants should claim asylum in the first safe place and that under European Union regulations, which is called the Dublin 3 regulation, the first country where they are [seeking] asylum is the one that should process their application,” Philp said.
“Now, because we’re out of the European Union now, we are out of the Dublin 3 regulations, and so we can’t any longer rely on sending people back to the place where they first claimed asylum. When we did check it out, just before we exited the EU transitional arrangements on December 31, 2020, we did run some checks and found that about half the people crossing the channel had claimed asylum previously elsewhere in Europe.
“In Germany, France, Italy, Spain, somewhere like that, and therefore could have been returned. But now we’re out of Dublin, we can’t do that, and that’s why we need to have somewhere like Rwanda that we can send these people to as a deterrent.”
Philp’s enthusiasm for the Rwanda plan is somewhat undermined, not only because of its huge cost to the British tax-payer, but also because it has been blocked by the European Court of Human Rights. Not a single migrant, illegal or otherwise, was ever transferred to Rwanda, and the scheme was binned by Keir Starmer on entering Downing Street last year.
Sky News reports that government ministers have confirmed the Labour government is discussing a returns agreement with the French that would involve both countries exchanging people seeking asylum.
The Conservatives under new-ish leader Kemi BadEnoch, meanwhile, claim that they have plans to deal with immigration. Just like they told us they did when they were in government.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, as featured on Google News Showcase, email us inside.croydon@btinternet.com for our unbeatable ad rates
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
Like this:
Like Loading…