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full screenRishi Sunak at Monday’s press conference. Photo: Toby Melville/Pool/AP/TT
Now nothing can stop the controversial venture with migrant flights to Rwanda, according to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The first plans should take off already this summer.
The plans have met with fierce opposition. Both courts and other experts call them inhumane and illegal.
Sunak sees it as an attempt to fulfill the election promise to “stop the boats”, i.e. to deter the life-threatening refugee smuggling across the English Channel. People who want to seek asylum in the UK are to be flown to Africa and have their cases tried there.
– Now that will be enough, says the prime minister after several months of different trips when the lower and upper houses sent different proposals between them.
– We are ready. The plans are there, and these flights will take off no matter what.
In a brief appearance, he claims that the first plans will go “in ten to twelve weeks”.
A new vote in the House of Commons is expected during the day.