By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Newly elected Prime Minister of Britain, Keir Starmer on Saturday hinted that he was “not prepared” to continue with the plan to deport asylum seekers and migrants to East African Rwanda, a key policy programme of the Conservative government of the immediate past Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak.
“The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started… I’m not prepared to continue with gimmicks that don’t act as a deterrent,” he told reporters at his first news conference.
Heritage Times HT reports that with his “stop the boats” plan, Sunak had staked his political reputation, vigorously pursing the controversial transfer deal despite opposition from rights groups and judicial rulings.
Labour Party’s Starmer who this week ended the 14-year rule of the Conservative government, however, said it would jettison the scheme to remove people to Rwanda who crossed the English Channel by boat from northern France.
Immigration has become an increasingly central political issue since the United Kingdom left the European Union in 2020 in the Brexit deal, largely on a promise to “take back control” of the country’s borders.
Starmer said previously that Sunak’s policy was neither a deterrent nor value for money.
He has pledged to tackle the issue “upstream” by smashing the people-smuggling gangs behind the crossings.
Central to the policy would be a new “elite” Border Security Command, comprising immigration and law enforcement specialists, as well as the domestic intelligence service MI5, he has said.
UK Home Office had last month said 12,313 people have made the crossing to Britain so far this year, an 18 per cent increase from the same period last year.
There were 29,437 arrivals across the whole of 2023, a drop of 36 per cent on a record 45,774 arrivals in 2022.
The plan to transfer the migrants suffered several setbacks under Sunak, just after the first flight was ready to move the first set of persons to Rwanda.
Heritage Times HT reports that Sunak has continued to champion it even after the UK Supreme Court in November last year ruled the plan was unlawful.
The court said Rwanda could not be considered a safe third country to deport illegal migrants.
In response to the ruling, Sunak signed a new treaty with the East African country and passed new legislation in June to circumvent the ruling declaring Rwanda unsafe.
