Charity boss hails Keir Starmer's move to scrap 'shameful' Rwanda plan immediately after General Election win
6 July 2024, 12:18 | Updated: 6 July 2024, 13:54
A human rights charity has hailed Labour's move to axe the Rwanda plan immediately after the party's overwhelming victory in the General Election.
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Sir Keir Starmer's party has long said it would axe the controversial Conservative scheme, which would have seen illegal migrants sent to Rwanda to claim asylum.
No migrants were ever sent to Rwanda under the scheme, which was mired in legal battles for years, although British taxpayers forked out hundreds of millions of pounds to the east African country.
After Labour were elected with a huge majority overnight on Thursday, Sir Keir declared the Rwanda plan was "dead and buried" on Saturday.
Sonya Sceats, the chief executive of charity Freedom From Torture, applauded Sir Keir for "moving immediately to close the door on this shameful scheme".
How could Rwanda have contributed to an election decision?, Nick Ferrari asks Sir John Curtice.
She said that it "played politics with the lives of people fleeting torture and persecution and damaged the UK's reputation as a country that plays by global rules designed to keep us all safe."
Ms Sceats said that "with its mandate for change, the new Labour Government must move quickly to rebuild a fair and compassionate asylum system that allows people needing sanctuary to rebuild their lives as part of our communities."
Confirming the end of the Rwanda plan, Sir Keir said: "The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started. It's never been a deterrent.
"Look at the numbers that have come over in the first six and a bit months of this year, they are record numbers, that is the problem that we are inheriting. It has never acted as a deterrent, almost the opposite, because everybody has worked out, particularly the gangs that run this, that the chance of ever going to Rwanda was so slim, less than 1%, that it was never a deterrent.
"The chances were of not going and not being processed and staying here, therefore, in paid for accommodation for a very, very long time. It's had the complete opposite effect and I'm not prepared to continue with gimmicks that don't act as a deterrent."
Nick Ferrari and caller discuss the Rwanda plan
Labour's manifesto promised to use the money saved from abandoning the Rwanda plan to pay for a new security border command to tackle the dangerous journeys, which would have "hundreds of new specialist investigators" and "use counter-terror powers to smash criminal boat gangs".
Part of this will be addressing what the party described as the "hopeless" asylum backlog, by hiring more caseworkers to process claims, as well as addressing the millions of pounds being spent on housing asylum seekers in hotels while they await a decision.
Questions remain over whether Labour will restore rights to migrants making the journey to allow them to claim asylum again.
Also on the list will be establishing more returns agreements and boosting the number of removals for migrants the government determined have no right to be in the UK - something ministers and officials have been trying to achieve since Brexit.
But former Home Secretary Suella Braverman criticised Sir Keir for scrapping the scheme.
She said: "Years of hard work, acts of Parliament, millions of pounds been spent on a scheme which had it been delivered properly would have worked.
"But there are big problems on the horizon which will be I'm afraid caused by Keir Starmer."
