Unionists must be wary that Tories do not 'roll over' to Dublin again by creating an Irish Sea immigration border: Jim Allister

That was the message from Jim Allister, as the tussle between London and Dublin continues over an apparent surge in the number of asylum seekes crossing from Northern Ireland into the Republic.

There were claims on Tuesday that about 100 gardai were being redeployed to monitor the Irish border, though gardai and the Department of Justice denied that it was as simple as that.

The department said that 100 gardai are being “freed up” thanks to some immigration paperwork being transferred to civil servants, but “it is not the case that these gardai will be assigned to physically police the border with Northern Ireland”.

Speaking in the Dail, the new taoiseach Simon Harris said that the move involves civil servants taking on “desk jobs” that 100 gardai were doing, so that these officers “can now work more closely with the PSNI on an important collaboration between the PSNI and An Garda Siochana, and also so they can work on deportations”.

The justice minister for the republic had said in recent days that more than 80% of asylum seekers arriving in the state have come through the UK.

Prime Minister Sunak had rejected the idea of Ireland returning some of these migrants to the UK, given that “the EU doesn’t accept returns back to France where illegal migrants are coming from”.

However now the Irish government is insisting that a deal on this issue already exists between Dublin and London.

The taoiseach told the Dail on Tuesday that this “operating agreement” was struck in 2020, letting asylum seekers whose applications are “inadmissible” to be “returned” to the UK, and vice versa.

Mr Allister said: “If the republic sees the need to protect its own territory, then by the same token it should have always been their responsibility to protect their single market – but instead of course they coerced and forced that to the Irish Sea.

“It’s an indication of the hypocrisy and double standards of the republic that they can establish an immigrant border but say that to even put a camera on the customs border would be something that would provoke violence, et cetera.

"Fundamentally the basic rules should be it’s their territory, it’s for them to protect their territory in whatever way they think appropriate.

“I think where unionism needs to be wary is that when last there was a problem with an open or non-open border on the island of Ireland, the British government rolled over and moved the border to the Irish Sea.”

Unionists must remain vigilant so “he doesn’t placate the Irish Republic again by moving the immigration border to the Irish Sea, and that’s really what Dublin is looking for – that we, the UK, would check the immigrants as they come across the Irish Sea,” adding that “of course, that’s part of them wanting to regard Ireland as a whole”.

All of this comes against a backdrop of the UK government attempting to keep alive its plans to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda.

However, only 5,700 people have been earmarked for this one-way journey to the east African nation to date: a minuscule number compared with the total of new arrivals to the UK each year, which are counted in six figures (and out of that total a mere 30,000 or so arrive on so-called “small boats” – the rest come via normal ports and airports).

It also transpired this week that around three-fifths of those 5,700 people destined for Rwanda have since vanished from UK authorities.