By Enyichukwu Enemanna
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said, deportation flight for illegal migrants will not depart UK to Rwanda till the July 4 snap election takes place, implying that a Labour Party victory could stop the controversial Conservative Party-backed policy.
Sunak made the announcement on Thursday during the first full day of campaigning.
Sunak at the campaign event cast the policy as central to the political race in which his party is struggling to retain power.
The Labour Party currently maintains a commanding 20-point lead in opinion polls and has promised to scrap the deportation plan if it wins power.
In April, he had promised the flights would take off in 10 to 12 weeks. Mass arrests of potential deportees began earlier this month.
“We’ve started detaining people … the flights are booked for July, airfields on standby, the escorts are ready, the caseworkers are churning through everything, so all that is happening, and if I’m re-elected as your prime minister, those flights will go to Rwanda,” Sunak said.
The deportation plan has been a flagship policy for Sunak since he took office in October 2022.
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.
Labour leader Keir Starmer has however vowed earlier this month that he would trash the plan, which has already cost hundreds of millions of pounds since it was conceived.
Starmer instead plans to introduce a separate plan to launch a new border enforcement unit and tap counter “terror” powers to clamp down on people smuggling.
Sunak earlier in the week called for vote months earlier than expected, shocking members of his party.
Immigration, economy and the National Health Service is expected to be a prominent issue in the election campaigns, with Sunak taking credit for bringing down inflation rate from over 11% in 2022 to less than 3%.
