Britain has announced it is pausing asylum applications from refugees who had fled the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
The Home Office said it was suspending Syrian asylum decisions “while we assess the current situation” following the fall of the Assad regime at the weekend.
It made its announcement while foreign secretary David Lammy was still on his feet in the House of Commons, where he told MPs that the idea of pausing Syrian asylum decisions “has not been put to me”.
Mr Lammy made a statement to the house calling Mr Assad a “monster” and a “butcher with the blood of countless innocents on his hands”. Mr Assad, said Mr Lammy, was not the “Lion of Damascus” as his supporters had previously portrayed him, but rather he was the “Rat of Damascus” who had fled to Russia.
[ Arab rulers fear Syria could slip into factional chaosOpens in new window ]
He warned the fall of the Assad regime was “a moment of danger as well as opportunity” for Syria and the Middle East. He said some Syrian refugees had flooded back in to the country from neighbouring states over the last 24 hours, but “the flow in could easily become a flow back out”.
“It could potentially increase the numbers [of Syrian refugees] using dangerous and illegal migration routes to continental Europe and the UK.”
Mr Lammy refused to say if Britain would now look to establish diplomatic relations with Syria, after the Tory former foreign secretary, James Cleverly, asked him if Britain would open an embassy in Damascus. Mr Lammy warned that the al-Qaeda links of the main Syrian rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, “should make us cautious”.
“We will judge HTS by their actions and in how they treat civilians in areas under their control,” he said. “We will continue to reflect on diplomatic relations with Syria.”
[ Rebels face task of preventing Syria from fracturing into fiefdomsOpens in new window ]
Priti Patel, the Tory shadow foreign secretary, had earlier asked Mr Lammy what implications the fall of the Assad regime might have for Britain’s Syrian resettlement scheme. He told her the question was “premature”, although minutes later the Home Office announced the scheme’s pause.
Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, was on a scheduled trip to the Middle East on Monday, which was meant to be about building relations for trade but it ended up being overshadowed by Syria. Mr Starmer visited Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. He welcomed the fall of Mr Assad and announced a further £11 million in UK funding for Syrian humanitarian causes.
Mr Lammy, meanwhile, said the focus in the “hours ahead” needed to be on making sure that Syria was able to maintain a police force.
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