The British Conservative government wanted to take illegally arrived asylum seekers to Rwanda. The abandoned plan has cost hundreds of millions, even though only four people were taken to Rwanda.
The plan of the so-called Rwanda model, which was thrown into the British trash can, has already cost taxpayers 700 million pounds, or about 830 million euros. Britain’s new interior minister talks about it Yvette Cooper.
According to Cooper, the country’s previous conservative-led government planned to put almost 12 billion euros into implementing the plan.
In the plan, asylum seekers who arrived in Britain illegally would have been transferred to Rwanda while their asylum applications were processed. Earlier in July, the prime minister won the election Keir Starmer’s The Labor Party rejected the plan.
Cooper says that the 830 million euros already spent include, among other things, charter flights ordered but not implemented, the work of British government officials and the sum of 344 million euros paid to the Rwandan government.
“This is the most appalling waste of taxpayers’ money I have ever seen,” Cooper told the British Parliament on Monday.
The previous British government justified its plan by saying that it would stop crossing the English Channel by boat.
However, several lawsuits have been filed against the plan, which is why only four people who left voluntarily have been taken to Rwanda.
Cooper says Britain is now processing the asylum applications of the thousands of asylum seekers who had been held in an interim state awaiting possible deportation to Rwanda.
In addition to removing the Rwanda model, the government intends to repeal the section of the Immigration Act, which automatically denies asylum to all those who arrived in Britain after March.
According to Cooper, the government now intends to process the applications and decide on the expensive accommodation of asylum seekers in hotels. The Minister of the Interior says that the policy change will save a good eight billion euros over the next ten years.
Source: Reuters