Labour’s election victory in July could derail the government’s controversial programme of deportation flights to the African country.
British prime minister Rishi Sunak admitted on Thursday that no flights to Rwanda deporting asylum seekers would leave before the July 4 general election. He said the flights will start if he remains in the prime minister’s chair in the upcoming election. He also told BBC:
If you think stopping the boats is important, and you think like I do that you need a deterrent to do that … then I’m the only one that’s going to deliver that.
Also speaking to LBC radio station, the premier reiterated that no flights will take off before the election, adding:
The preparation work has already gone on.
Deportation plan “was a con from start to finish”
However, Labour’s shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the prime minister’s comments proved the deportation plan “was a con from start to finish”. She also noted:
With all the hundreds of millions they have spent, it would be extraordinary if ‘symbolic flights’ didn’t take off in early July, as the Tories planned.
Britain has already spent £240 million ($305 million) on the Rwanda plan, and the total cost will be at least £370 million ($470 million) over five years, according to official figures.
Migration policy and the government’s particularly controversial plan for Rwanda will be a key issue between the ruling Conservative Party and the main opposition Labour Party during the election campaign, which runs for six weeks until July 4.
Having become law at the end of April, the long-debated law to send asylum seekers to Rwanda paves the way for thousands of asylum seekers to be deported within weeks.
Last January, Sunak said tackling illegal migrants travelling in small boats across the Channel was among his government’s five priorities, as more than 45,000 migrants arrived in the UK this way in 2022.
