Was Starmer right to link Brexit to a rise in small boat crossings

Starmer said the UK had a “returns agreement” with every country in the EU before Brexit.

The PM was apparently referring to the Dublin III regulation – which the UK formally exited on 1 January 2021.

“He [Farage] told the country it will make no difference if we left,” Sir Keir told GB News. “Well, he was wrong about that – these are Farage boats, in many senses, that are coming across the Channel.”

The regulation allowed some asylum seekers to be returned to the first country in the EU that they had entered, although other factors like family reunion were taken into account. Under the scheme, some people could be sent to the UK too.

Responding to Sir Keir’s claim, Reform UK told BBC Verify that the Dublin regulation “made us a net recipient of asylum seekers” and “did nothing to make it easier to return asylum seekers”.

However, the UK only become a net recipient in the period between the 2016 Brexit vote and leaving the scheme at the end of 2020.

As the chart below shows, in the years leading up the referendum the UK transferred more people to other EU countries under the regulation than it received in return.