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Rishi Sunak has said that no asylum seekers will be sent to Rwanda before the UK general election on July 4, prompting claims that his flagship migration policy has turned into a “humiliation” for the prime minister.
More than two years since ministers first proposed the Rwanda scheme, Sunak said he would start deportation flights if he wins the election.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has committed to stop the scheme, meaning it is possible that not a single asylum seeker will ever be deported to Rwanda. The UK has already paid Rwanda £220mn in relation to the scheme.
“The election is about the future,” Sunak said. “If I’m elected I’m going to get those flights off.” Asked on the BBC’s Today programme if flights would begin after the election, Sunak replied: “Yes.”
Tory officials later said the flights would take off “in the first two weeks of July, as planned”.
“This is an utter humiliation and admission of defeat from a prime minister who has thrown millions at his failing vanity project,” said Alistair Carmichael, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said Sunak’s words “show this whole Rwanda scheme has been a con from start to finish” and that “he called the election now in the desperate hope that he won’t be found out”.
She noted however that “with all the hundreds of millions they have spent, it would be extraordinary if ‘symbolic flights’ didn’t take off in early July, as the Tories planned”.
Labour figures said Sunak may be planning to surprise voters with a deportation flight in the run-up to polling day. Tory officials confirmed it was still possible that a flight could leave for Rwanda before July 4.
The Rwanda scheme was first proposed by ministers in April 2022 but Sunak has in effect conceded that voters will have to re-elect a Conservative government if they want the policy to be implemented.
“We’ve already started detaining people . . . we’ve booked the flights. If I am reelected, these flights will go,” Sunak said.
Sunak was speaking at the start of a six-week election campaign after his shock announcement on Wednesday of a summer election. He said he would offer the country “security” in an uncertain world.
The prime minister, asked about his decision to announce the election during a rainstorm in Downing Street, said: “I’m the first to admit it was definitely a bit wet. But I’m not a fairweather politician.”
The image of a drenched prime minister dominated newspaper front pages on Thursday morning but Sunak insisted he wanted to stick to the tradition of making big announcements outside 10 Downing Street “come rain or shine”.
Asked why he had decided to call an election now rather than later in the year, Sunak said it was because data showed “we have turned a corner and brought economic stability back”.
But Sunak’s decision to call a July election — rather than waiting until the autumn as most Tory MPs expected — has drawn some criticism from within his party.
One minister despaired that the party was ill prepared: “We haven’t got our campaign lines properly set. Other than the economy, what is our message?” The frontbencher predicted the Tories were on track to lose half their seats, adding it was “Charge of the Light Brigade stuff”.
One former minister said there were merits to “ripping off the plaster”, but warned that while “it may make sense on paper to call the election now, in reality it just doesn’t feel right”.
Another Tory backbencher was fatalistic about Labour heading into government in six weeks’ time. “I’d have said wait. But it’s a fact now, we’ve just got to get on with it. I’m worried we’re going to have a bunch of amateurs running the country,” the MP said.
Parliament is suspended on Friday ahead of a general election, leaving government business managers facing decisions on which pieces of unfinished legislation to rush into law in the next 24 hours.
