UK AND INTERNATIONAL media, including GB News, The Sun, and The New York Times, have been responding to the growing diplomatic row between Ireland and the UK over migration.
In a monologue on the right-wing GB News, Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg pointed to McEntee’s claim that more than 80% of people seeking asylum in the Republic are now arriving via Northern Ireland as evidence that “the Rwanda plan is working”.
While Tánaiste Micheál Martin said McEntee’s 80% figure was “not statistical”, Rees-Mogg also referenced Martin’s comments last week as further evidence that the “plan is working”.
Martin last week said there has “clearly” been an increase in the numbers coming from Northern Ireland to the Republic and added: “It’s fairly obvious that a Rwanda policy, if you’re a person in a given situation in the UK and well, then you don’t want to go to Rwanda.”
The UK’s Rwanda plan will see asylum seekers who are deemed to have entered the UK illegally from a “safe country”, such as France, sent to Rwanda to have their asylum claims processed there.
If successful, they could be allowed to remain in Rwanda, but if unsuccessful, they would need to apply to settle in Rwanda or seek asylum in another “safe third country”.
No asylum seeker would be allowed to return to the UK.
Rees-Mogg used his “Moggologue” on GB News to say that “just one week since the Rwanda Bill achieved Royal assent, before flights have even been scheduled, the deterrent is taking effect”.
‘Let me be clear, we owe Ireland and the EU nothing in terms of refugee returns!’@Jacob_Rees_Mogg points to an influx of illegal migrants attempting to enter Ireland as proof the UK’s Rwanda bill is a successful deterrent.
— GB News (@GBNEWS) April 29, 2024
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He then pointed to plans to draft legislation to designate the UK as a safe country again in order to return asylum seekers who have crossed the border into the Republic from Northern Ireland.
Rees-Mogg said “we don’t owe Ireland of the EU anything in terms refugee returns”.
He also claimed there is a “golden opportunity” to “send all of the illegal migrants in the UK to facilities near the Irish border”.
“If it just so happens that they then end up crossing the border, so be it,” added Rees-Mogg.
Meanwhile, an editorial in The Sun remarked that “the Irish do like a laugh” and that this could be the only “explanation” to “Ireland’s hilarious attempt to dump its migrants on Britain”.
The ‘Sun Says’ editorial claimed British prime minister Rishi Sunak was “as instant and as blunt as we hoped” in rejecting a deal with Ireland on the issue.
The Sun also remarked that Ireland has “admitted” that the Rwanda scheme is working as a deterrent “before its launch” and that legislation approved by Cabinet today is “pointless”.
Elsewhere, the centre-right London Times newspaper quoted British prime minister Rishi Sunak as saying “no, no, no, no” when asked if a deal could be struck with Ireland over the issue.
The UK paper used a picture of asylum seeker tents on Mount Street outside the International Protection Office for its article image.
The New York Times also used images of tents on Mount Street for its article image, describing the situation as a “diplomatic squabble”.
In its reporting, The New York Times says Ireland is “is already struggling to absorb an influx of refugees from Ukraine and elsewhere” and points to “violent clashes over immigration in small towns and major cities”.
It adds that the Rwanda plan has “unexpectedly put the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic back in the spotlight”.
The New York Time also described the abrupt cancellation of a meeting between Helen McEntee and British home secretary James Cleverly as “added to the sense of a fresh diplomatic crisis.”
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