The Tories only realised the impact that leaving the EU would have<\/a> on dealing with the small boats<\/a> crisis \u201cjust before\u201d Brexit<\/a>, Boris Johnson<\/a>\u2019s former immigration minister has admitted.<\/p>\n In a leaked recording, shadow home secretary Chris Philp<\/a> appeared to concede that the Tories were late to understand the extent to which people crossing the Channel could have been returned to EU countries they had previously claimed asylum<\/a> in.<\/p>\n The admission, in a recording obtained by Sky News, reported to come from a meeting with Tory members last month, appears to stand in stark contrast to the Tories\u2019 Brexit promises on \u201ctaking back control\u201d of the UK\u2019s immigration system.<\/p>\n In summer 2020, Mr Philp had warned that \u201cconstraints\u201d in the EU\u2019s Dublin regulations \u2013 rules that govern which countries in the bloc should process<\/a> an asylum claim \u2013 made \u201creturning people who should be returned a little bit harder than we would like\u201d, while Mr Johnson\u2019s spokesperson criticised them as \u201cinflexible and rigid\u201d.<\/p>\n But in the new recording, when reportedly asked by a Tory member why countries such as France continued to allow migrants to come to the UK, Mr Philp can be heard striking a somewhat different tone.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n (PA)<\/p>\n The Tory frontbencher appears to say: \u201cBecause we\u2019re out of the European Union now, we are out of the Dublin 3 regulations, and so we can\u2019t any longer rely<\/a> on sending people back to the place where they first claimed asylum. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen we did check it out, just before we exited the EU transitional arrangements on 31 December 2020, we did run some checks and found that about half the people crossing the channel had claimed asylum previously elsewhere in Europe<\/a> \u2013 in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, somewhere like that, and therefore could have been returned. <\/p>\n \u201cBut now we\u2019re out of Dublin, we can\u2019t do that, and that\u2019s why we need to have somewhere like Rwanda that we can send these people to as a deterrent.\u201d<\/p>\n Labour claimed the leaked recording showed the Tories \u201cdidn\u2019t have a plan<\/a>\u201d for asylum as it led the country out of the EU.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n (PA)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/SEI98767741.jpg\")
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