Illegal migrants may be deported to North Macedonia after the Balkan country entered formal talks with the UK about opening a migrant “return hub”.
Britain would pay North Macedonia for each migrant it accepts under a plan that Sir Keir Starmer hopes will help deter migrants crossing the Channel in small boats. The UK would also agree to invest in the country and offer security guarantees to help combat the threat of Russia as part of the deal.
North Macedonia formally entered talks with the UK earlier in the autumn, The Times understands. It is among a small number of countries in negotiations with Britain about opening a series of the hubs overseas.
Migrants would be deported and offered the chance to claim asylum in North Macedonia but would not be detained or face restrictions on their movement, making them free to leave the country if they wished. They would be encouraged to claim asylum or to get work visas in sectors where there are major shortages such as construction.
Skopje, the North Macedonian capital
ALAMY
It is part of Starmer’s plan to create a variety of measures to prevent migrants crossing the Channel, after he admitted in a letter to President Macron last month that at present there was “no effective deterrent”.
Kosovo is also in talks with the UK about opening a return hub, having already agreed to take illegal migrants from the US, but its prime minister has said it has “limited capacity”.
Bosnia and Herzegovina rejected an approach from Britain because accepting failed asylum seekers from Britain was “incompatible with our national interests”, its presidency told The Times.
Opening a third-country return hub would finally enable Britain to remove migrants who have come from countries to which it is impossible to return them because it is unsafe, such as Afghanistan or Eritrea, which account for the two largest nationalities arriving on small boats. The inability for Britain to remove failed asylum seekers from certain countries is seen as a key pull factor attracting illegal migrants to the UK.
Starmer has described return hubs, which are also being explored by other European countries, as a “really important innovation” and has dismissed comparisons with the Conservative Party’s Rwanda scheme, which he scrapped immediately after entering power last year.
Unlike the Rwanda scheme, migrants would only be removed to the return hub destination after they had been rejected for asylum in the UK and exhausted all avenues of appeal. The Rwanda scheme was designed to remove migrants within days of arriving in the UK without the opportunity for their asylum claim and other legal avenues to be considered.
Government sources have also dismissed the comparison because Rwanda was deemed by the British courts to be unsafe for asylum seekers.
A Home Office source said: “We’re in negotiations with certain countries, but we are not building a migration plan that banks on return hubs alone. It must always be part of a wider package. We’re not looking for a silver bullet, because there isn’t one. That’s what the Tories did with Rwanda and it failed. We’re trying lots of things at once because that is how you solve a problem this big and complex.”
Migrants in Dunkirk, northern France, rescued from a collapsed boat
GARETH FULLER/PA
Germany and Denmark are among other European countries exploring the idea of setting up return hubs and the UN’s refugee agency has said it would endorse them as long as they complied with human rights standards.
Starmer is said to be keen to agree return hubs with Western Balkan countries because they would not face similar legal challenges, helped by the fact they have signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and also lie on a key migration route.
North Macedonia, which has a population of 1.8 million, is seen as a key country that can help to tackle illegal immigration as it lies on one of the main routes for illegal migrants travelling to western Europe from the Middle East and Africa.
More than 10,000 migrants have travelled through the Western Balkans so far this year and UK government ministers believe that investing in the infrastructure of the region will encourage migrants to stay in the region rather than travelling on and trying to cross the Channel in small boats.
Earlier this year North Macedonia joined an immigration task force with the UK and other Balkan countries that shares intelligence and carries out operations against people smugglers in the region.
Dr Andi Hoxhaj, a Balkan expert at King’s College London, said the hubs were an attractive option for both sides because they helped to meet each other’s national strategic interests. “These hubs [would] send a message that migrants who enter illegally will not be allowed to remain in the host country,” he said.
“North Macedonia might have some interest, as its current government has strained relations with parts of the EU … A bilateral deal with the UK could allow it to demonstrate new international partnerships.”