Latest news with #RwandaScheme
Daily Mail
10 hours ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Bring back Rwanda scheme to end small boats crisis, says architect of Australia's successful migrant crackdown
The mastermind behind Australia's migrant crackdown has called on Keir Starmer to 'reinstitute' the Rwanda scheme. Alexander Downer called on the Prime Minister to 'eat a bit of political humble pie' and resurrect the scheme, which was scrapped last year in one of Starmer's first acts after being elected into No 10. Sir Keir insisted the deportation scheme was a £700million 'gimmick' which did nothing to cut migrant Channel crossings. But Mr Downer, who was Australia's minister for foreign affairs from 1996 to 2007, claimed the move was a 'tragedy' and believes it could have worked if the legal issues surrounding it 'could be properly addressed'. 'It would have worked assuming the legal issues could be properly addressed — and they were being,' he told the Sun. 'So the easiest thing for them to do would be to eat a bit of political humble pie and reinstitute the Rwanda scheme.' Just earlier this week, Downing Street admitted the situation in the Channel was 'deteriorating' as the number of migrants reaching the UK topped 2,000 in a week for the first time in 21 months. The 2,222 arrivals over seven days meant an average of one migrant reached Britain every four-and-a-half minutes. Mr Downer has previously expressed his belief in having a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to illegal migration. The former foreign minister was one of the masterminds behind Australia's crackdown on illegal immigration in the early 2000s, which sought to punish migrants who arrived on the country's shores by boat. This meant sending them by boat to detention centres in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific island of Nauru, where migrants would be offered to return to their home countries and refugees were told they could resettle in another. 'Once word got round that if you tried to get into Australia by boat you would not be allowed in and would be sent to Papua New Guinea instead, they ran out of customers. The smugglers' businesses closed down,' he previously said. The Tony Abbott government claimed a 90 per cent reduction in maritime arrivals of asylum seekers once the policy was introduced in 2013. There were 207 arrivals in November that year, opposed to 2,629 in November 2012. Starmer has pledged to crack down on smuggling gangs that bring people into the UK in small boats, including by targeting criminal networks overseas. Last month he said the Government would start talks with other countries on 'return hubs' for failed asylum seekers, which would see failed asylum seekers sent for processing in third countries prior to deportation. The PM admitted these would not be a 'silver bullet' for halting the crossings, but the proposal is expected to act as a deterrent. Last week's crossing total was the most since September 2023, when the former Tory government's Rwanda policy was still in legal limbo. It tipped the total since Labour came to power at last July's general election past the 40,000 mark, hitting 40,276. Since the start of this year, 17,034 migrants have reached Britain, up 38 per cent on the same period last year. The figure does not include hundreds more who reached Dover yesterday. Reform leader Nigel Farage said it was 'about time' Britain faced up to the fact it was 'our fault' – rather than France's – that so many migrants head here. 'We will never stop the boats from leaving France,' he told broadcaster Talk.
Daily Mail
03-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Labour ridiculed for blaming surge in Channel migrants on weather as data shows Rwanda deportation plan WAS a deterrent
Labour has been ridiculed for blaming migrant crossings on the weather as it published data indicating the Rwanda asylum scheme had a clear deterrent effect on arrivals. The Home Office published figures on the number of so-called 'red days' which have seen calm weather conditions in the Channel. To a chorus of derision, it claim]ed good weather 'tended to coincide with an increase in the number of overall arrivals'. But the figures also showed migrant arrivals were far lower when Conservative ministers were poised to finally launch Rwanda removals flights last year. In the weeks after legislation designed to combat legal challenges against the scheme was passed by the Tories, Channel arrivals did not reflect the highest-ever number of 'red days'. In May last year, the month after the Tories' Safety of Rwanda Act entered law, there were a record 21 'red days' but only 2,765 arrivals – about the same as the previous two months when weather was poor. In June last year – immediately before the general election – there were 20 'red days' but only 3,007 arrivals. There was a similar effect on Channel arrivals in the month after the Rwanda scheme was first unveiled in April 2022, with low arrivals despite calm weather. The record number of migrants, at 1,195, on Saturday was the earliest point in any calendar year to have witnessed more than 1,000 arrivals in a day Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer scrapped the Rwanda scheme as one of his first acts after winning power in last July's election. It comes after Saturday witnessed 1,195 small boat arrivals - the fifth highest daily tally on record. It was also the first day to break the 1,000 barrier for more than two and a half years. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: 'This analysis proves the Rwanda removals plan was having a deterrent effect in the weeks before it even had a chance to start. 'The number of arrivals was low even on red days in the weeks after the Safety of Rwanda Act was passed. 'The deterrent effect of the prospect of removal to Rwanda was already kicking in. 'This proves it was a catastrophic mistake by Labour to cancel the Rwanda scheme. 'Common sense tells us that illegal migrants would not want to come to the UK if they faced the prospect of being removed to Rwanda.' He added: 'The Labour Government seems to think that praying for bad weather is a good border security strategy. 'This is a weak Government, with no plan to end illegal immigrants crossing the Channel. 'That's why 2025 is the worst year in history for illegal crossings - not the weather. 'Our borders have been thrown open by our weak Prime Minister and his weak Home Secretary.' Experts at Oxford University's Migration Observatory also contradicted the Government's claim that the weather was affecting Channel numners. Senior researcher Dr Peter Walsh said: 'There's no evidence to suggest that the weather is a major factor explaining long-term increases in small boat arrivals, such as the one we've seen over the past eight months. 'The data published today suggest that over long periods of a year, the number of crossings seems to be broadly unrelated to the number of red days that make the Channel safer to cross. 'It thus seems unlikely that the weather is much more than a short-term constraint on small boat crossings. 'Other factors, such as the number of people wanting to reach the UK and the number and professionalisation of smuggling gangs are likely to be more important.' A Home Office spokesman said in the first four months of this year there were 60 'red days', or 'more than double the number compared to the same period in 2024' when there were 27. During the same period small boat arrivals were 11,074, or 46 per cent higher than the same period in 2024. The spokesman said: 'This government is restoring grip to the broken asylum system it inherited that saw a whole criminal smuggling enterprise allowed to develop, where gangs have been able to exploit periods of good weather to increase the rate of crossings for too long. 'That's why we are giving counter-terror style powers to law enforcement, launching an unprecedented international crackdown on immigration crime, have prevented 9,000 crossings from the French coastline this year alone and have returned almost 30,000 people since the election. 'At the same time we are cracking down on the false promise of jobs used to sell spaces on these boats – with illegal working visits and arrests up by more than 40 per cent under this government.'
Bloomberg
29-05-2025
- General
- Bloomberg
Trump Considers Deporting Migrants to Rwanda After the UK Decides Not To
It only took one day in office last summer for newly appointed British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to jettison his predecessor's controversial plan to deport UK asylum-seekers thousands of miles south to Rwanda. First floated by Conservatives in 2022, the UK's 'Rwanda scheme' —which triggered four voluntary removals but no wider expulsion—was 'dead and buried before it started,' Starmer said in July at his first press conference from Downing Street, dismissing the whole thing as little more than a 'gimmick.' Now the US is picking up a version of the UK's discarded playbook as it looks to add the African nation to a growing list of allies such as El Salvador, Mexico and—most recently— South Sudan that are open to accepting the Trump administration's outflow of deportees.
Telegraph
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
From Dunkirk's ‘Little Ships' to today's ‘small boats'
Sometimes, events provide a metaphor for the state of British politics that is simply too perfect to pass up. On Wednesday, a flotilla of 'Little Ships' set out to cross the English Channel in commemoration of the 85th anniversary of the rescue of British forces from Dunkirk. Regrettably, their journey was disrupted by the present-day exodus from the beaches of northern France when Border Force and the French Navy insisted on a one-nautical-mile exclusion zone for a single migrant boat. It is hard to think of a better illustration of the absurdities imposed on the British people by Sir Keir Starmer's failure to get a grip on the Channel crisis. The costs of the uncontrolled flow of migration from the beaches of France continue to mount, with taxpayers paying roughly £4.6 million each day for their accommodation, and there is little prospect of this flow ending. While the Germans were unable to halt the small boats in 1940, the French are unwilling to stop them in 2025. The British state, meanwhile, appears essentially content with letting things carry on as they are. Sir Keir's pledges to 'smash the criminal gangs' and to establish 'return hubs' carry little weight when set against his actions, and in particular the decision to gut the Rwanda scheme, which could have functioned as a possible deterrent. There should be little surprise in Downing Street, then, at modelling which predicts arrivals hitting a new record high this year, or at tumbling support from a population tired of excuses rather than solutions. Unless Sir Keir is willing to come up with a genuine policy for dealing with the Channel crisis, Labour stands little chance of re-election.
Telegraph
15-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
‘Return hubs' won't solve the Channel crisis
Sir Keir Starmer is a man who wishes to give the impression of a Damascene conversion. Having issued a series of thundering pronouncements on the costs of legal migration earlier in the week, the Prime Minister is now attempting to convince the public that he will be able to halt the illegal Channel crossings. Whether he has a viable plan for doing so – or indeed has genuinely been swayed from his previous pro-migration stance – is another matter entirely. On today's evidence, there is little prospect of reining in a flow that has risen to a record pace under his premiership. Speaking in Albania alongside his counterpart Edi Rama, Sir Keir announced that the UK was to seek arrangements with third countries for 'return hubs'. A natural conclusion from the venue, and from the two Italian migration detention centres already open in the country, was that Albania would be one of these partners. Yet Mr Rama shot the idea down, stating that the relationship with Italy is a one-off. It was a strange piece of choreography; why make the announcement in Albania, if Albania is not set to be one of the countries involved? As things stand, it is entirely unclear which countries, if any, the UK would partner with. Moreover, Sir Keir – having dismantled the Rwanda scheme the moment he took office, with what would appear to be an associated increase in the pull factor drawing migrants to Britain – now appears to be attempting to reintroduce the scheme in watered-down form. The Rwanda scheme would have seen migrants arriving in the UK deported to claim asylum elsewhere, vastly reducing the attraction of illegal channel crossings. 'Return hubs', however, would just be a place to host failed asylum seekers attempting to frustrate their removal from Britain. This would be an improvement on the status quo, but at best a marginal deterrent to those crossing the Channel. Successful applicants who made the journey would be permitted to stay. Given that in 2023 Britain had one of the highest asylum grant rates in the EU, and the relative dynamism of the British economy, the draw factor to migrants would still remain considerable, even if recent data suggests grant rates have dropped. If Sir Keir genuinely wishes to smash the criminal gangs and end the Channel crisis, he should swallow his pride, and consider Rwanda-style deportations as the deterrent Britain needs.
