PM hails next month’s ‘reset’ summit as first step to closer ties, but tensions over trade may prove problematic
Andy Burnham has promised a “serious dialogue” over the UK’s future place in Europe, saying the existing relationship is “not good enough” as he framed next month’s Brussels summit as a possible first step to EU membership.
The prime minister said Britain must take a “clear-eyed rational look” at its long-term relationship with the bloc to boost economic growth and control immigration, which needed to go beyond Labour’s existing red lines.
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© Photograph: House of Commons/PA
© Photograph: House of Commons/PA
© Photograph: House of Commons/PA
Nigel Farage has pledged to shut down the asylum system for five years and deport 90,000 applicants immediately.
The post Farage Pledges to Shut Down Asylum System appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
The prime minister tells MPs the next summit with the EU will be held on 20 November
Burnham to urge MPs to embrace closer ties with EU
Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s home affairs spokesperson, is speaking now. He started his speech with an account of a 73-year-old woman dying in North Wales after having to wait 23 hours for an ambulance, and he sought to link this to immigration.
He said:
The Royal College of Emergency Medicine estimates that 15,000 people across Britain died last year due to excess wait times for emergency treatment. That’s 300 people a week, 300 lives destroyed, 300 families devastated.
And that number has increased tenfold over the last decade. This is a moral outrage, and it is a direct result of decisions made by Tory and Labour governments.
I don’t think that’s because he wants to have a fight over the European Union. I think that’s because he knows what we’re talking about today impacts hard in what is known as the red wall.
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© Photograph: House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA
© Photograph: House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA
© Photograph: House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA
The Council gave its final approval to the Return Regulation on 1 October. The measure introduces a common European framework for returns, including a European Return Order, stronger obligations on people ordered to leave and special provisions for individuals regarded as security risks.
It also creates an explicit legal basis for member states to send people subject to return decisions to facilities established in non-EU countries.
Such arrangements can only be concluded with countries considered to respect international human rights standards and international law, including the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits returning people to places where they face persecution or serious harm.
Unaccompanied minors are excluded from transfers to return hubs.
The regulation will enter into force the day after its publication in the EU’s Official Journal. Provisions dealing with return hubs will apply immediately, while measures requiring administrative preparations will take effect one year later.
The decision moves the return-hub policy beyond the negotiating stage. In September, EU Today reported that Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Greece had begun actively seeking third countries willing to host return centres.
By the end of September, the same group was preparing a pilot system intended to begin transferring rejected asylum seekers outside the EU during 2027.
The European Commission has argued that the existing returns system has been one of the weakest parts of EU migration policy. When agreement on the legislation was reached in June, it said the effective return rate had risen to 28 per cent in 2025 but remained too low.
The Council now puts the problem more starkly: around two in every three people ordered to leave the EU do not actually leave.
A central element of the new framework is the European Return Order.
A member state issuing a return decision will enter essential information on a standard European form. That will give other member states the information required to recognise the decision if the person subsequently moves elsewhere within the Union.
Automatic recognition will not initially be compulsory. Governments will be able to recognise another country’s return decision voluntarily, with the arrangement due to be reviewed three years after the regulation enters into force.
The Commission may then propose making mutual recognition mandatory.
People ordered to leave will also face an EU-wide obligation to cooperate with national authorities. Failure to do so can lead to reduced benefits or allowances, withdrawal of incentives for voluntary departure, financial penalties and, where national legislation permits, criminal sanctions.
Separate rules apply to individuals considered security risks.
Governments may impose indefinite entry bans where justified and proportionate and may detain such individuals for periods exceeding 24 months.
The Return Regulation complements the wider EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, which entered application on 12 June. That system introduced new arrangements covering border screening, asylum procedures, biometric registration and responsibility-sharing between member states.
Return hubs have nevertheless become one of the most politically significant elements of the wider migration policy.
The European Parliament approved the new returns framework in June, after Council and parliamentary negotiators had reached a provisional agreement earlier that month.
Attention subsequently moved to implementation — particularly the question of finding governments outside the EU willing to host people removed from member states.
The regulation cannot compel a third country to accept a return centre. An agreement or arrangement must first be negotiated with the country concerned, covering legal safeguards and the operation of the facility.
That requirement leaves the most difficult diplomatic question unresolved.
The five governments already working together on return hubs have discussed possible partner countries, while Greece has separately moved to create national legislation supporting transfers to centres outside the EU.
The Council’s decision gives those initiatives a common European legal framework. Whether return hubs become a significant part of EU migration policy will now depend on agreements with countries prepared to host them.
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