British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak walk out of Downing Street in London, Britain, December 1, 2021. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
Evening Standard
By David Bond
A furious row broke out on Thursday over government plans to send “tens of thousands” of asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing.
Although the move was branded “irresponsible” and unworkable by opposition politicians and human rights groups, the Prime Minister used a landmark speech in Kent to insist the new hardline immigration policy would be “fully compliant” with Britain’s international legal obligations.
But he accepted that the agreement with the Rwandan government, which was being signed by Home Secretary Priti Patel on Thursday morning in the African nation’s capital Kigali, was likely to face a legal challenge.
It has been reported that under the agreement, men arriving in Britain without the legal right to claim asylum in the UK will be flown more than 4,000 miles to the landlocked African country where they will be encouraged to settle to help alleviate a shortage of labour. Others will reportedly be sent to a processing centre in Linton-on-Ouse, North Yorkshire.
Mr Johnson said the deal with Rwanda — which comes after previous failed attempts to strike similar agreements with other places including Ascension Island, Albania and Gibraltar — was “uncapped” and Rwanda “will have capacity to resettle tens of thousands of people in the years ahead”.
He emphasised the UK could no longer be seen as a “soft touch” by Britain’s partners after more than 28,000 people reached the English coast in small boats last year and 27 drowned while attempting to cross the Channel. “Our compassion may be infinite, but our capacity to help people is not,” he said.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the plan was “unworkable, unethical and extortionate” and accused the Government of attempting to “distract from Boris Johnson’s lawbreaking”. Mr Johnson has been fined, along with Chancellor Rishi Sunak and his wife Carrie, for breaking lockdown laws and faces the prospect of more partygate fines in the coming weeks.
Although the negotiations with Rwanda have been going on for months, one senior Tory — the chair of the defence committee Tobias Ellwood — also accused Mr Johnson of using the announcement, which will be popular with the Right of the Conservative Party, as a distraction.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Ellwood said: “He’s trying to make an announcement today on migration, and all of this is a massive distraction. It’s not going away. It is a crisis. It requires crisis management. There needs to be a plan.”
Ian Blackford, Westminster leader of the Scottish National Party, branded the plan “chilling” and said people would be “aghast”. “This is not the mark of a civilised society,” he said. “It’s evil, it just turns my stomach to see a government acting in our name can behave in such a way and a lot of people are going to be quite aghast.”
Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director, said the plan to fly male adult economic migrants to Rwanda was “irresponsible”.
He added: “Sending people to another country — let alone one with such a dismal human rights record — for asylum ‘processing’ is the very height of irresponsibility and shows how far removed from humanity and reality the Government now is on asylum issues.”
Enver Solomon, chief executive, of the Refugee Council, said the plan wouldn’t stem the flow of illegal migrants across the Channel. He told BBC: “The way to address this is not to ship people across the globe to Rwanda. The way to address this is to come up with proper solutions that really make a difference.”