The UK has been told to stop blaming Albanians for the migrant crisis by the country’s prime minister.
Edi Rama said the British government needs to stop using Albanian immigrants to “excuse policy failures”.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has singled Albanians out several times over the past week as the numbers coming from the southern European country in small boats across the Channel has soared.
Immigration minister Robert Jenrick said Albanians are “abusing” the Modern Slavery Act to delay deportation attempts.
But Mr Rama has had enough and tweeted on Wednesday: “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 fact.
“Repeating the same things and expecting different results is insane (ask Einstein!).
“70% of the 140,000 Albanians who have moved to the UK were living in Italy and Greece.
“1,200 of them are business people. Albanians in the UK work hard and pay tax. UK should fight the crime gangs of all nationalities and stop discriminating v Albanians to excuse policy failures.”
He added that Albania is a NATO country and is currently negotiating its EU membership, as well as being a “safe country of origin”.
Mr Rama said when Germany had a similar problem “it tightened its own systems – the UK can and should do the same, not respond with a rhetoric of crime that ends up punishing the innocent”.
He said Albania is “not a rich country and was for a very long time a victim of empires, we never had our own”.
The PM added: “We have a duty to fight crime at home and are doing so resolutely, as cooperating closely with others too.
“Ready to work closer with UK but facts are crucial. So is mutual respect.”
