INTRODUCTION

In July 2016 – one month after the decision by the people of the UK to leave the European Union – the House of Lords European Union Committee published a report about problems facing unaccompanied migrant children in the EU. The Committee criticised the actions of the UK government on two fronts: for its reluctance to demonstrate solidarity and its failure to take responsibility for migrant children in its care.

More than three years later, the concerns raised have fallen on deaf ears, as the Brexit negotiations continue to be predominantly dominated by issues relating to the Customs Union and security. The apparent complacency among UK government ministers as to the need to protect children's rights post-Brexit is encapsulated by Dominic Raab’s, former Brexit Secretary, comment that:

This chapter will address the two concerns raised by the EU Committee, considering the UK's approach towards solidarity and its growing self-referential attitude in the application of legal standards for the protection of migrant children. Firstly, this tendency will be examined by comparing the UK's retraction from its commitments towards migrant children under the ‘Dubs amendment’, a short-lived scheme introduced in 2016 to receive unaccompanied refugee children from Greece and Italy, and the EU's parallel relocation scheme. Building on the shortcomings of these two experiences, the chapter will move on to assess how Brexit may negatively impact the UK's willingness and ability to adequately cater for migrant children's needs in the future, providing an overview of the areas where the dismantling of EU protection standards will be most felt. Equally, the issue of Brexit will finally be approached from the perspective of the value of the UK's contribution to child protection in certain fields where it leads by example at the EU level, such as the cooperation in police and cross-border justice or its innovative approach to the support of child victims of trafficking (VoTs). The chapter will conclude that, despite the uncertainty surrounding Brexit, there are already a number of worrying tendencies emerging towards isolationism and avoidance of supranational accountability.