Keir Starmer to beg nine countries to take migrants

quote:

---

Labour is scrambling to pin down countries for its "return hubs" scheme in a bid to tackle illegal migration into the UK. Government officials have drawn up a shortlist of nine countries they hope will participate in a new "return hubs" scheme, housing small-boat migrants whose UK citizenship has been rejected overseas. Kosovo, Serbia, North Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and several countries outside Europe are Keir Starmer's top picks for the "return hub" destinations, although formal talks have not yet begun with any country, according to The Times. Labour is scrambling to tackle the number of asylum seekers arriving in the country after applications hit a new high in the year to March 2025, with a record-breaking 109,343 people applying for asylum over 12 months – a 17% year-on-year rise.

While ministers hope that progress will have been made by the time western Balkan leaders arrive in London for a meeting this autumn, attempts to secure agreements about taking migrants from the UK don't appear to have gone smoothly so far. Despite insistence than Albania had "never" been considered for involvement in the scheme, the Prime Minister was left red-faced when his Albanian counterpart Edi Rama definitively ruled out the idea last week.

---