Edi Rama attacks British return hubs scheme as looking for ‘places to dump immigrants’
A UK plan to send refused asylum seekers to “return hubs” in third countries shows post-Brexit Britain is “in a very dark place”, Albania’s prime minister has said.
In his first interview with the international media since leading his socialist party to a historic fourth term in office, Edi Rama said the idea of the UK wanting to “look for places to dump immigrants” would have been inconceivable a decade ago.
But it was in keeping with the shift in public discourse in Britain since Brexit, in which the “totally unacceptable, totally ridiculous, totally shameful” had become normalised, he said.
Announced last month by Keir Starmer during a visit to the Balkan state, the “return hubs” scheme would involve centres in a third country processing the claims of people refused asylum who have exhausted legal pathways in the UK.
