Leaders Great Britain and Ireland on course due to migration wave

(Bloomberg) — A dispute between Britain and Ireland over a wave of asylum seekers threatens to upend their already fragile relationship. With elections for the leaders of both countries approaching, it appears neither party will back down.

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Disagreements between Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his newly installed Irish counterpart, Taoiseach Simon Harris, came into focus this week when the government in Dublin brought forward emergency legislation allowing it to return asylum seekers to Britain. Sunak hit back, vowing not to stick to a previous agreement to take them in as long as Ireland’s fellow EU member France refused to accept the return of migrants from Britain.

The episode has revived concerns about recent arrangements over post-Brexit trade in the Irish Sea and power-sharing between unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland, which remains part of Britain. The core of these agreements is to maintain an open north-south border on the island of Ireland, despite Britain’s departure from the European Union in 2020.

The flow of people across that border is now being watched more closely in Dublin, as Sunak steps up his campaign to “stop the boats” ferrying migrants across the English Channel from France. Harris’ justice secretary, Helen McEntee, told a parliamentary committee last week that 80% of those seeking international protection in her country came from the north.

On Thursday, authorities in Dublin renewed their efforts to clear migrant camps outside the Irish International Protection Center in the capital. Irish media reported that the republic would post police near the border with the north, a controversial idea quickly denied by the Ministry of Justice. Irish police said its members would not be “physically” assigned to the border.

The dispute is fraught with centuries of history between Ireland and the island’s former colonial rulers in London. An integral part of the Good Friday Agreement, which ended the decades-long conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles, was an open border.

Continued movement across the border has also been one of the most contentious issues between Britain and the EU in the wake of the Brexit referendum. And Harris, who took control of the ruling Fine Gael party after Leo Varadkar’s surprise resignation in March, will need to look strong as he takes on Britain ahead of an election within 10 months.

“I’m not sure how they’re going to get over it quickly,” said Muiris MacCarthaigh, head of politics and international relations at Queen’s University Belfast. “They must work together, but any backtracking on special commitments by the British government would be politically disastrous.”

Immigration has become one of the most important issues for voters in Ireland during a housing crisis. More than 1,800 asylum seekers are currently homeless and sleeping on the streets.

Sunak faces similar pressure at home, where the populist Reform UK party, founded by Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, has promised “net zero” immigration in a bid to hamper the ruling Conservative Party’s vote. With the number of asylum seekers flooding into the country – including a record 7,567 in the first four months of the year – Sunak has passed a law allowing migrants to be deported to Rwanda and rejected Harris’ request to accept more asylum seekers for Ireland.

Harris, for his part, said the country would not provide a “loophole” for another country’s immigration problems.

An Irish court ruling in March led to the current impasse. In a notable parallel to a similar decision by Britain’s highest court last year, the Irish tribunal ruled that Britain was not a “safe country” to return asylum seekers to in light of Sunak’s Rwanda plan.

That effectively froze a 2020 “operational agreement” between Ireland and Britain that allowed the transfer of asylum seekers between the two sides. Although no migrants had been sent under this deal, the bill approved by the Irish Cabinet sought to restore its viability.

Sunak has said Britain had no legal obligation to accept asylum seekers who had returned from Ireland. Speaking to ITV News, Sunak said he was “not interested” in a return deal if the EU did not allow Britain to send asylum seekers back to France.

Tensions became apparent after British Home Secretary James Cleverly canceled a meeting with McEntee on the sidelines of an intergovernmental conference on Monday, citing “agenda issues.” While Irish Deputy Prime Minister Michael Martin and British Foreign Secretary for Northern Ireland Chris Heaton-Harris tried to show a united front when they met later that day, the immigration battle continued.

The political calendar means that there is a lot at stake for both parties. Local and European Parliament elections will take place in Ireland on June 7. Sunak, whose party suffered widespread losses in local elections in Britain on Thursday, is hoping to crack down on what he calls illegal immigration as a centerpiece of his campaign in the expected general election. election. later this year.

“There is definitely a feeling that British-Irish relations are on a rollercoaster at the moment,” says MacCarthaigh of Queen’s University Belfast.

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