The Liberal Democrats have urged Andy Burnham and the government to take the UK into the EU's Migration and Asylum Pact as a way of tackling Channel small boat crossings. Party leader Sir Ed Davey argued that Brexit has undermined Britain's ability to check migrants crossing the Channel, since the Home Office lost access to EU-wide databases containing criminal records and information on rejected asylum applications, and he accused Reform and the Conservatives of exploiting a crisis of their own making.

Under the plan, joining the pact would let the UK legally return migrants to the first EU country they entered and restore access to the bloc's biometric database, which the Lib Dems say would remove a key "pull factor" and disrupt smuggling gangs' business model. The EU pact itself, in force since 12 June, requires asylum seekers to claim asylum in the first country they enter and introduces new screening, registration and biometric tracking rules alongside fast-track procedures for low-likelihood claims; campaign groups European Movement and Best for Britain also backed closer UK-EU cooperation, though the latter warned that piecemeal bilateral deals would not match full access to EU systems.