RISHI SUNAK admitted today that the first Rwanda deportation flights will not leave until July, insisting MPs and peers would sit through the night to get his “stop the boats” policy passed.
At a Downing Street press conference, the Prime Minister acknowledged he would miss his self-imposed spring target for getting the widely condemned scheme off the ground.
He blamed Labour peers for holding up the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill for weeks, having decided only then that Parliament would sit for as long as it takes to end the deadlock between the Lords and Commons.
The Bill is aimed at making the Tory policy to fly asylum seekers one-way to Rwanda, which Mr Sunak insists will deter people seeking to cross the English Channel in small boats, legally watertight.
Campaigners however accused the government of “demonising and scapegoating” asylum-seekers and called for “compassionate” policies.
Lucy Gregg, acting head of advocacy at Freedom from Torture, said: “We urgently need the UK government to start treating refugees with decency and stop trying to send them away to an unsafe future in Rwanda.”
The Refugee Council warned the Rwanda plan is unlikely to work as a deterrent, describing it as something which will “only compound the chaos within our asylum system, all at an exorbitant cost to taxpayers.”
The council’s chief executive Enver Solomon said: “Even if, as the Prime Minister asserts, there is to be ‘a regular rhythm of multiple flights every month,’ this will still only correspond to at most a few thousand people a year out of tens of thousands.
“Instead of giving these people a fair hearing on UK soil to determine if they have a protection need, the government will have to look after them indefinitely, at considerable cost.”
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the government “could have passed this Bill a month ago if they had scheduled it then, but, as we know, Rishi Sunak always looks for someone else to blame.
