London (Parliament Politic Magazine) – Rishi Sunak’s government will cooperate with the EU’s Frontex on border protection, sharing information and technologies to combat illegal migration.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government will reveal in the coming days an accord for cooperation with the European Union’s border protection agency, Frontex, in an additional sign of thawing post-Brexit relations.
Sunak’s spokesman stated on Monday the agreement would mean that both sides would share information on gangs concerned with illegal migration and collaborate on technologies to control human trafficking.
Frontex “has unparalleled insight into illegal migration and cross-border crime on the European continent, so it is right that we have these conversations to reach these working arrangements that will give us new ways to tackle illegal migration,” Sunak’s spokesman stated.
In a readout of a call between Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday, Downing Street agreed should be formalized in the coming days.
In a telephone conversation, the two leaders welcomed the successful conclusion of negotiations on a new working agreement between UK agencies and Frontex as part of broader cooperation between the UK and EU on a crackdown on illegal migration. The two executives also shared that the Ukraine crisis requires full attention. The President informed the PM about the conclusions of the European Council, which had agreed on 50 billion euros in financial support for Ukraine.
Moreover, Sunak has made preventing the arrival of small boats carrying asylum seekers from France one of his five top priorities. He hopes a fall in arrivals might help his Conservative Party, trailing in opinion polls, pull off a surprising win at the next general election later this year.
While Britain has signed bilateral agreements – including a recent deal with Turkey to disrupt people-smuggling gangs and contain illegal migration – it no longer has returns agreements with the EU since it left the bloc.
On the other hand, Rishi Sunak has been blamed for squandering Brexit freedoms after quietly presenting sweeping EU equality rules into British law.
New regulations, pushed through Parliament without fanfare, “gold-plate” judgments by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and make a “carte blanche” for companies to be sued for “unlimited damages,” Conservative MPs have cautioned.
The changes amount to a substantial expansion of New Labour’s Equality Act, which Mr Sunak once claimed had “allowed every kind of woke nonsense to permeate public life” and “must stop.”
Ministers said the changes conveyed “necessary protections” from EU case law into domestic law before ECJ judgments ceased to apply in Britain this year following Britain’s exit from the EU.
However, Tory MPs have slammed the Government for adopting the measure and say it goes further than some ECJ rulings.
Lawyers consider the laws could, for example, allow workers who care for disabled family members to sue companies for “indirect discrimination” on the grounds of disability if they are barred from working from home.