The plan to expel migrants from the United Kingdom to Rwanda will ultimately not happen. The new British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, confirmed this Saturday, July 6, that he was “not ready” to continue the project of the previous Conservative government. The latter “was dead and buried before it even started. It was never a deterrent, I am not ready to continue with gimmicky measures,” said, during a press conference organized after the first cabinet meeting of the Labour government, the one who was officially appointed Friday by Charles III at 10 Downing Street.
When he was in opposition, the leader of the Labour Party had already announced his intention to end this controversial Conservative project, launched in 2022 but never implemented. The subject of immigration was one of the main themes of the election campaign that has just ended in the United Kingdom, and which saw Labour win a very large majority in the House of Commons.
After a previous text was rejected by the Supreme Court at the end of 2023, this law allowing expulsions was adopted last spring. The previous Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, planned to begin expulsions this summer and the authorities had started to arrest migrants likely to be part of them in early May. But with the uncertainty of the legislative elections, the courts had ordered the release of dozens of them. The text thus planned to send asylum seekers who arrived illegally on British soil to Rwanda, which would have been responsible for processing these applications. According to the BBC, the British government has already paid nearly £240 million to Rwanda in 2023.
Means inspired by the fight against terrorism
On April 30, British media reported that Britain had sent the first voluntary asylum seeker to Rwanda under the program. The government of now former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had announced that it planned to deport 5,700 migrants to Rwanda in 2024.
Labour promised during the campaign to tackle illegal immigration, particularly the arrival of migrants on small boats via the Channel. The new government plans to deploy counter-terrorism-inspired resources to counter people-smuggling groups. And it wants to further strengthen cooperation with Europe, particularly France. It has also pledged to increase the UK’s asylum processing capacity, which has been backlogged for several years.
Since the start of the year, more than 13,500 migrants have crossed the Channel to reach the UK. After falling last year, the number of arrivals has been rising again since January. “Years of hard work, laws passed by Parliament, millions of pounds spent on a project that, if it had been implemented properly, would have worked,” lamented Suella Braverman, a Conservative Party member tipped to succeed Rishi Sunak, on Saturday. “There are big problems on the horizon, which I fear will be caused by Keir Starmer,” she continued.