Prime minister outlines plans to penalise countries that refuse to take back refused asylum seekers
The UK will look into penalising countries that refuse to take back people who are refused asylum by making visa applications for their nationals harder, Keir Starmer has said at the G7 summit in Canada.
Asked during a media Q&A about ways to reduce the number of people arriving irregularly, the prime minister said it would have a more “transactional” approach to granting visas for countries depending on their cooperation with returns.
This would also be the case, he said, for countries that did not cooperate on efforts to prevent their nationals heading towards Europe and potentially the UK to claim asylum.
Describing a G7 session on migration at the summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, on Monday, Starmer said: “I made clear that we are looking at issues like a smarter use of our visas, looking at whether we should tie our visas to the work that the countries we’re dealing with are doing on preventive measures and on return agreements.”
