Keir Starmer has fallen into a migration trap...it's clear the result will be a disaster

SIR Keir Starmer has fallen into a trap. His rhetoric on immigration will alienate Left-leaning Labour voters while those on the Right will point to a record number of Channel crossings so far this year and sky-high levels of net migration.

- MICHAEL KNOWLES

The result? Everyone loses trust in politics and society continues to suffer from the effects of mass migration, the small boats crisis and a failing asylum system.

On a visit to Albania the Prime Minister said he wanted to deport failed asylum seekers to “return hubs”, with the UK opening talks with as many as nine countries.

But Sir Keir's Rwanda-lite plan was dealt a blow within minutes when Albania's PM Edi Rama said Tirana would operate such a scheme only with Italy, a deal predicated on a deep historical bond the UK does not have.

Sir Keir even faced awkward questions about previous comments, from former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, about Albanian criminals living in the UK.

Downing Street sources insist a UK return hub in Albania was never on the cards for the meeting. But the optics of such a moment were embarrassing for a Prime Minister who is desperately trying to end the Channel migrant crisis and to blunt Nigel Farage's growing popularity in the polls.

Only failed asylum seekers who have exhausted all of their appeals would be sent to one of these proposed hubs.

Home Office sources dismissed comparisons between the project and the Tories' Rwanda deportation scheme, where migrants were filing legal challenges against Home Office deportation plans.

The hubs could be a solution for removing foreign criminals and illegal migrants from countries such as Afghanistan, where no deportation deals are ever likely to be signed. But that is where the problems start.

The Migration Observatory says the asylum backlog was 91,000 in December and of those awaiting an initial decision, 50,000 had been in line for more than six months.

Another crisis is brewing too.

The Migration Observatory went on: “The initial decision backlog is not the only backlog. The number of pending appeals before the first-tier asylum tribunal has also risen sixfold in two years to 42,000.