Joining the agreement would require the UK to accept some asylum seekers from the EU. However, the Liberal Democrats argue numbers would be lower than those currently coming to the UK by small boat and that they would be screened before entering the country.
The party says the scheme would save British taxpayers money, with the cost of participating – around £100m a year – amounting to a fraction of the £5bn spent on a “failing asylum system”.
Sir Ed said: “We have a plan that would finally end the small boats crisis: a pact with every EU country that will allow us to return people who come over the Channel, taking away the major pull factor that [Reform UK leader Nigel] Farage and co created and destroying the business model of the criminal gangs.”
Like the Liberal Democrats, some Labour politicians have made the argument that Brexit led to an increase in small boat crossings.
Reform UK has previously dismissed such claims as “complete misinformation”, arguing that EU membership “did nothing to make it easier to return asylum seekers”.
The EU pact replaces previous agreements – including the Dublin Regulation which allowed countries to return asylum seekers to the EU country they initially arrived in.
But the protocol had been criticised for placing a disproportionate burden on countries receiving the bulk of the arrivals.
The new so-called solidarity mechanism creates a pool of about 30,000 asylum seekers to be redistributed across the 27 member states.
Instead of accepting asylum seekers, participating countries could instead choose to pay €20,000 (£17,000) per person not taken.
Arrivals must be registered, with identity checks to prevent those who pose security or public health risks from entering the EU undetected.
People aged six and above would have their biometric data collected, with information – such as fingerprints – stored on the Eurodac database.
The UK government has previously said it would like to regain access to the database, something it lost following Brexit.
Joining the pact could prove tricky for the UK and would require unanimous approval from all EU states.
The government would also have to pass new laws to implement the pact and could have to standardise its procedures with the EU bloc.
