Preparations for our Rwanda flights are continuing. This week, we started detaining those who will be sent to Kigali. I am determined to keep up a regular flow of flights over the summer.
Starting the flights is how we will stop the boats, break the business model of the criminal gangs, stop young children from losing their lives making this perilous journey and ensure that it is us – your government – who decides who comes to this country.
This week, we removed the first failed asylum seeker to Rwanda, the first time a failed asylum seeker has ever been sent to a third country they have no connection to.
The exercise reassured us that the process works and that the Rwandans are ready to receive these people. It proves that, no matter what our opponents claim, Rwanda is a safe third country and the system works.
By contrast, Labour has no plan to deal with illegal migration. They would scrap the Rwanda scheme with nothing to put in its place.
This would mean that they would have to release everyone we have detained to go to Rwanda, cancel the flights we have booked to send them there and admit tens of thousands of people to the asylum system. This would double the asylum backlog.
How would Sir Keir Starmer resolve this? In truth, he wouldn’t be able to, so Labour would end up offering a de facto asylum amnesty. This would act as a massive pull factor bringing illegal migrants from all over Europe to our shores. And we would end up spending billions of pounds putting people up in hotels all over again, while asylum claims were processed.
Not only are we making progress on tackling illegal migration, but legal migration too. The current levels are far too high. I have taken steps to halve legal migration and data released this week shows that our plan is working.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
