TIRANA, Nov. 3, 2022 – Comments by UK government officials on Albanian migration are “scapegoating” the country and “fueling xenophobia,” Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said Wednesday.
He made the comments on social media and in statements to the press after UK political and media discussion went into a frenzy on the topic following UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman singling out Albanians as an “invasion” for their role in illegal immigration to the country.
Small boat crossings across the English Channel have become a major issue in the UK, where anti-migration advocates had hoped Brexit would bring tighter migration controls.
According to British government statistics, citizens from Albania now make up the largest single group crossing the channel in small boats.
Rama takes on UK press
Rama appeared on BBC Newsnight Wednesday night to accuse the UK government of “finding scapegoats” for its own “failed policies.”
“I thought it came a point where it was impossible to not react because it was really an embarrassment for our civilisation to hear all kind of crazy words being thrown in the air … ‘invasion’ was the peak,” he said.
In a series of earlier messages posted on his Twitter account, Rama said that UK officials have been actively “discriminating” against Albanians.
“Targeting Albanians, as some shamefully did when fighting for Brexit, as the cause of Britain’s crime and border problems makes for easy rhetoric but ignores hard facts. Repeating the same things and expecting different results is insane,” Rama wrote on Twitter.
He noted Albania is already fighting crime at home and is ready to work with international partners, but added that the UK must provide “mutual respect.”
“Albanians in the UK work hard and pay tax. UK should fight the crime gangs of all nationalities and stop discriminating Albanians to excuse policy failures,” Rama added.
Albania as the migration ‘bogeyman’
Albert Rakipi, chairman of the Albanian Institute for International Studies told Tirana Times the UK political narrative around this issue had gone overboard is very odd.
“It’s as if the mighty Royal Navy is facing a flotilla of Albanian little boats, which aren’t even Albanian, and is losing,” Rakipi said.
Albanian critics point out that the majority of those using boats are not Albanian, but somehow the small nation has become the poster child of this issue in UK political circles.
Braverman and other conservative MPs have repeatedly singled out Albanians as false asylum seekers and having ties to criminal gangs.
“If Labor were in charge, they would allow all the Albanian criminals into this country, they would allow all the boats to come into the UK, they would open our borders and totally undermine the confidence of the British people that we can control our sovereignty,” Braverman told MPs.
British MPs were recently told that 12,000 Albanians had arrived in the country after crossing the channel so far this year, compared to just 50 in 2020. Reacting in parliament to criticism that it had not taken legal advice on with migrants being held protractedly at an asylum center in southern Britain, Braverman said the current system was “dysfunctional” and “out of control”.
Denis MacShane, who served as the UK Minister of State for Europe from 2002 to 2005, and is familiar with Albania said in comments sent to Tirana Times that Albania was clearly serving as “a bogeyman” for certain politicians.
“This tiny west Balkan nation with a population the size of Greater Manchester is the new bogeyman for politicians, much of the press, and every pub wiseacre in England,” MacShane noted.
He also pointed out that had Albania’s EU accession process worked better, things would be different for the country and Europe.
“If by now Albania was on the slipway to the EU like Croatia or Slovenia earlier this century or as in the 1980s Portugal and Greece, there would be no need for any young Albanian man to seek work in Britain,” MacShane said.
Albanian migration focus of UK domestic debate
Braverman was one of several government officials and MPs who has come under domestic criticism for their comments on migration, singling out Albanians in particular in heated debates in the UK House of Commons.
Braverman referred to the small boat crossings on Monday as the “invasion of our south coast” and said “illegal immigration is out of control.”
Her deputy, Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, was more diplomatic in comments on Tuesday.
“In a job like mine you have to choose your words very carefully,” he told Sky News television. “And I would never demonize people who come to this country in search of a better life.”
Jenrick said UK and Albanian authorities are working together to address the migration issue.
“I’m grateful for the work we’re doing with the Albanians, they have been sending senior police officers over so as to speed up processing, we’ve got an expedited system to return Albanians if it turns out they are not legitimate asylum seekers,” he said.
New British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who appointed Braverman after he took office last week, told his cabinet on Tuesday that Britain “will always be a warm and welcoming country,” his spokesman said.
