UK, Irish Leaders on Collision Course over Migration Surge

Disagreements between UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his newly installed Irish counterpart, Taoiseach Simon Harris, burst into view this week as the government in Dublin advanced emergency legislation allowing it to return asylum-seekers to the UK.

Sunak hit back, vowing not to abide by a previous agreement to take them, so long as Ireland’s fellow EU member, France, refused to accept migrant returns from Britain, Bloomberg reported.

The episode has renewed worries about the recent settlements on post-Brexit trade across the Irish Sea and power-sharing between unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland, which remains part of the UK. At the heart of those agreements is maintaining an open north-south border on the island of Ireland, despite the UK’s exit from the European Union in 2020.