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  • 13 minutes ago
Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn says immigration controls cannot be placed on the Irish border, amid renewed criticism of the Common Travel Area. His comments come after two nights of rioting in Belfast following a knife attack in which a man, reported to be an asylum seeker, was charged with attempted murder.
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Transcript
00:00The important thing to remember is what does the common travel area means? It
00:03means that citizens of the United Kingdom and Ireland also the Isle of Man
00:07and the Channel Islands are free to move to work to live to study and every
00:12single day in Northern Ireland people will move over the border to go to work
00:16and the other way round they'll take their children to school across the
00:19border they'll play sport they'll go shopping they will worship this is a
00:24fact of daily life there are what nearly three 300 crossing points between the
00:29Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland you cannot you absolutely cannot put
00:33immigration control on that border it's really important it underpins the Good
00:38Friday Agreement which has enabled Northern Ireland to make extraordinary
00:41progress in the last 28 years the best thing to do is effective intelligence
00:46led policing and enforcement that is what we're doing we're going to improve data
00:51sharing with the Irish authorities that was agreed by the Prime Minister and the
00:54Taoiseach earlier this year and we will see more operations to target those who
00:58have no right to be in the United Kingdom and in particular in Northern Ireland
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