New UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to scrap Rwanda plan

London:

Britain’s new Labor Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Saturday he was “not prepared” to continue the previous Conservative government’s flagship scheme to deport migrants to Rwanda.

“The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started… I am not prepared to continue with tricks that do not act as a deterrent,” he told journalists at his first press conference.

Former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak staked his political reputation on his “stop the boats” plan, promoting the controversial deportation plan despite opposition from human rights groups and court rulings.

Labor, however, said it would abandon the scheme to remove people crossing the Channel by boat from northern France to Rwanda.

Immigration has become an increasingly central political issue since the United Kingdom left the European Union in 2020, largely on a promise to “take back control” of the country’s borders.

Starmer previously said Sunak’s policy was neither a deterrent nor good value for money.

He promised to solve the problem “upstream” by crushing the people smuggling gangs behind the crossings.

At the heart of the policy would be a new “elite” Border Security Command, made up of immigration and law enforcement experts, as well as the national intelligence service MI5, he said.

An estimated 12,313 people have crossed into Britain this year, an 18% increase on the same period last year, the UK Home Office said last month.

There were 29,437 arrivals in all of 2023, a 36% drop from the record 45,774 arrivals in 2022.

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