Germany wants to send migrants to Rwanda in facilities paid for by the UK, after scheme scrapped by Labour
5 September 2024, 16:56 | Updated: 5 September 2024, 17:06
Germany has proposed adopting the Rwanda plan after Labour abandoned it.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
The country's migration commissioner Joachim Stamp said that a German Rwanda scheme would focus on migrants coming across the EU's eastern border.
Mr Stamp said Russia and Belarus were pushing migrants westwards to destabilise Germany and other European countries. "My suggestion would be that we concentrate on this group. It’s about 10,000 people a year," he said.
Germany has accepted millions of refugees over the past decade, but has toughened its stance in recent months.
The terrorist attack in a festival in Solingen over the weekend, in which the suspect is an Syrian asylum seeker, has drawn attention to the migration issue. A recent state election victory by the far-right AfD party also highlighted concerns over immigration.
Mr Stamp told a podcast: "We have to do exactly what failed in the case of Solingen".
He added that any Germany scheme would be supervised by the United Nations, in which sense it would differ from the British scheme that Keir Starmer axed on coming into power.
Mr Stamp said that Rwanda made the most sense as a destination for migrants who had arrived in Germany illegally, as the facilities from the British scheme were still in place.
He said that bringing in the deterrent of Rwanda would "take away the motivation to come to the EU", suggesting that a German scheme could be expanded to cover the entire bloc. Such a move would require some changes to the EU rules on asylum processing.
James praises Starmer for ditching the Rwanda plan as he contrasts with 'corruption' from previous Tory governments
A spokesperson for the east African country's government said: "Rwanda has been very public that they are happy to work with anyone on this who shares their desire to find a long term solution to the migration issue."
Britain's Rwanda scheme, first floated in 2022, was mired in legal challenges for two years before coming into law a few months before the Tories lost power.
The scheme was pronounced "dead and buried" by Starmer when he became Prime Minister in July.
The German proposal sparked fury from Conservative former Home Secretaries James Cleverly and Suella Braverman.
Journalist says scrapping the Rwanda plan leaves a 'hole in migration policy'
Mr Cleverly, who is currently the shadow home secretary and is among the frontrunners to be the next leader of the Opposition, said: "Labour’s first move in government was to scrap the Rwanda plan. Now Germany want to use the facilities we built. The only people who benefit from Labour’s reckless immigration policies are people-smugglers and the EU."
Mr Cleverly has said he would bring back the Rwanda scheme if he became Prime Minister.
Ms Braverman said: “Germany’s decision to adopt the Conservatives’ Rwanda scheme is more evidence of support within the EU of the need for a meaningful deterrence.
"That Starmer ditched the plan makes the UK look like a soft touch for illegal migrants, makes us now an outlier from other EU states grappling with the migration crisis, and is a waste of the vital work done to get the scheme up and running. A big mistake that Starmer will come to regret."
The previous government spent £700 million on the Rwanda plan, but just four migrants were sent, voluntarily.
Labour Home Secretary Yvette Cooper branded the huge cost the “most shocking waste of taxpayer money I have ever seen” as she claimed the previous government had planned to spend more than £10 billion on the scheme in total.
Outlining Labour's plans to curb illegal migration, Ms Cooper told MPs in July: "People in the UK want to see strong border security, with a properly controlled and managed asylum system where our country does its bit alongside others to help those who have fled persecution, but where rules are properly respected and enforced, so those with no right to be here are swiftly removed.
"We will invest money saved from the Rwanda Partnership into a new Border Security Command instead. It will bring together the work of Border Force, the NCA, the Small Boats Operational Command, intelligence and security officers.
"We are immediately increasing UK officers’ involvement in Europol and the European Migrant Smuggling Centre. And we are immediately re-deploying Home Office staff away from the Rwanda Partnership into returns and enforcement to reverse the collapse in removals that has taken place since 2010."
