Sunak claims sending police to ‘villages in Donegal’ not answer to migration

Transcript

00:00 Hypocrisy needs called out and everyone in this house will recall the former Irish Prime Minister in Brussels

00:06 with a photograph of a bombed customs post lamenting that any border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland

00:14 was unworkable, it was in breach of the Belfast Agreement and could result in such troubles again.

00:20 The hypocrisy of the Irish government from such a position has not been lost with the Irish police

00:27 now tasked to patrol the border, protect from the unsubstantiated, unfounded 80% figure of asylum seekers

00:35 who supposedly make their way to the Republic of Ireland from the UK via Northern Ireland when actually the reverse is true.

00:43 Will the Prime Minister challenge and call out these actions and confirm what representations he has made

00:51 to the Irish Prime Minister and the Justice Minister to respect the integrity of our border?

00:56 Hear, hear.

00:58 Well the House will be aware that we have made commitments to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland

01:04 and the Honourable Lady makes a very important point that the Irish government must uphold its promises too.

01:10 We can't have cherry-picking of important international agreements and so the Secretary of State

01:16 so the Secretary of State is seeking urgent clarification that there will be no disruption

01:23 or police checkpoints at or near the border and I can confirm that the United Kingdom has no legal obligation

01:30 to accept returns of illegal migrants from Ireland.

01:33 Now it's no surprise that our robust approach to illegal migration is providing a deterrent

01:38 but the answer is not sending police to villages in Donegal, it's to work with us in partnership

01:43 to strengthen our external borders all around the common travel area that we share.