Sunak’s Rwanda failure: experts tear up decision to delay Rwanda flights to after the election

Both parties claim stark differences in policy, but any immigration policy is on hold at this time. This morning, Rishy Sunak said

flights

from Rwanda would not take off during the

election

period. We can have a quick chat with Kevin Saunders, former director of immigration. for UK Border Force in C Hi Kevin, good afternoon, are you surprised that

flights

from Rwanda are not taking off during the

election

period? Yes, I was very surprised, actually, but that's what the Prime Minister said, so that's what's going to happen. Do you really think that flights taking off would make a difference to the core of the problem, which is an attempt to stop the ships?

It is not like this? The flights were to take off to show criminal gangs that we should not accept money from vulnerable people on the promise that they will stay in the UK. Yeah, I mean the lights turning on would have been very visual, very visual. We must have a deterrent. There has to be a deterrent. If we want to have any hope of trying to disrupt this horrible trade and the Rwanda plan, um it's the only deterrent on the table right now, so doing nothing while the elections are going on, it's not really a very good idea, because We know that if the workers win then Rwanda is not going to happen and if that happens then I am devastated to think what the situation is going to be in the UK, we are going to see 40 50,000 refugees this year, how much do you think the numbers will increase? when the weather changes across the channel when the weather gets nice then the numbers will increase?

Smuggling gangs will send everyone they can across the channel during good weather. The numbers will be astronomical and if we don't have a deterrent the numbers will be even worse because smuggling gangs can make a lot of money from this and the chances of getting caught are not very high so net migration is still unusually high , says the o NS, but these official estimates suggest a 10% drop in figures last year, so how do you square that circle? Well, you really can't. I mean, the net figure is still too high, according to David Cameron, when he was prime minister.

He wanted to reduce it to tens of thousands and it looks like it was around 650,000 for last year, which is a 10% reduction, but the problem is that we are giving out too many visas. If you give visas people will come to the UK and unfortunately we did. an agreement with India on trade that meant we needed to give India more visas, so that was unfortunate, but that's what happened, so we have to cut it. I mean, we're having some success in trimming it. uh um student dependency and, but I don't know what Labor is going to do, we don't know what Labor policy really is on this, what would you say would be the most useful part of the net immigration policy to change?

I've mentioned the dependency on students, uh, and that has reduced the numbers quite substantially, but where else would you direct your attention? Well you have to decide what you want to do now at a time when the government seems to want to bring in people to fill the jobs they say they can't fill in the UK and then on the other hand say there are too many people claiming benefits and they should actually be working, so it's a very, very difficult question, um. At the moment, if we cannot motivate our own workforce to work, then they have no choice, they must bring in people from abroad.

It's a pleasure talking to you. Thank you very much, Kevin Saunders, former head of immigration for the UK Border Force. At Cal, as I said, 15 European countries the other week signed a statement saying that they believe that has to be part of the solution because they are realizing that across Europe the penny is dropping, this challenge is growing, our security is being threatened. the only way to solve it so I have a clear plan, hopefully you have already seen some photos in the newspapers and on television, we have started to detain people, I can tell you that the flights are booked for July, the airfields are already in wait in court. social workers are looking at everything, so everything that is happening and if I am re-elected as your prime minister, those flights will go to Rwanda, we will put in place that deterrent, Richy Sunak, that we now have with us, Matt Daythan, the Home Affairs Editor of The Times, hello Matt, good evening, John, hello and Tony Colin is here too.

RTE Europe Editor, welcome Tony, hi John, hi Matt. Can I come to you first so that there are no flights to Rwanda before the elections that seem like a great hope for the conservatives that suddenly vanished? Yes, it is true and it is an admission of reality, really, two reasons, one is that there are many things, there are now two legal challenges already filed in court and there was a warning from government lawyers that there is a real risk of that the first flights will be

delay

ed as a result of them and the second is that the risk or gamble that the government or the Conservatives would face if they went ahead with organizing the first flight in the days before the election. and then something went wrong, he was punished or something else was too big a risk to take and it is correct, Matt, that there is a presumption within Whiteall that perhaps there would be months of legal challenges before Asylum Seekers could be months deported I wouldn't say assumption I think more of a prospect of possibility and given the nature of the high-stakes election, it was a risk that the Conservatives simply didn't want to take and, in fact, the Home Office is actually saying that the The timing process hasn't changed, we always said it would be that week that the flights would start, so it doesn't necessarily mean we were going to take a flight before the 4th of July anyway, if there is a schedule change.

The government in these general elections, Rwanda's plan will be kaput. The workers are committed to simply destroying it, essentially in the meantime, Matt, what's the status of the plan on the Rwanda end? What are they willing to do to welcome asylum seekers? Well, for the last two years they have said that they are, uh, uh, the preparations are there, they have the Hope shelter, which has a capacity of approximately 200 to 300 people, and their asylum system has been completely renovated since the Court Supreme. in November and they put all the mechanisms in motion and, yes, I would love to know what Paul Kagami is thinking.

Actually, you face your own elections on July 15, when you find out on July 5 if there is a change in the government as you say, yes, all the effort has been in vain, well, I guess not in vain, because he has a few hundred million pounds for it, yes, a few hundred million pounds of British taxpayers' money, and what are we talking about? a couple of hundred just a couple of hundred because the Prime Minister has talked about a drumbeat of planes taking off one after another and discouraging migrants from trying to cross the Channel, is it only a couple of hundred despite those millions?

Well, it's a couple of hundred in that particular hostel and the Randon government said look, when this plan gets underway we have other sites booked that we can get up at very short notice and then obviously they're just temporary accommodation , so once the Asylum claims have been processed then the idea is that they would move into permanent accommodation and therefore have a continuous number through the system okay Matt Dayon thank you very much indeed , it's a pleasure to speak to you and Tony Conley rte's Europe editor, tell me, uh, Tony and Welcome back, we welcome the Prime Minister, the British Prime Minister, saying that the United Kingdom is leading the line that 15 European countries want to follow the example of Great Britain in a Rwanda-style scheme.

How true is that Tony? It is certainly true that the debate in Europe. has changed and that is in the context of the upcoming European elections, there is expected to be a big increase in the number of far-right and right-wing MEPs elected in the 27 member states, so I think the main centre-right groups, centre-left and liberals within Parliament and in the member states have been toughening their rhetoric on migration - it is a concern for voters obviously - but no one has gone as far as Britain in the model of simply putting people in a flight, uh, after they have fulfilled. put them on a boat and send them to Rwanda forever, you know, whether they get refugee status or not, there is something called the EU migration pact that has been going on for about seven or eight years and has finally been approved by the member states and the European Parliament and talks about, you know, processing asylum seekers in third countries, but that's just processing their applications, obviously they want, you know, if it's clear that you're an economic migrant, which you're not.

Genuine refugee, then their procedure will be accelerated and they want to send those people back or save to third countries. The European People's Party, which is the main center-right group in Parliament and that is where Ur, the President of the Commission emphasizes, lays down his Manifesto. has talked about processing asylum applications in third countries, now they haven't spelled the name Rwanda per se um, but URS Wonder Lion recently emphasized that anything they do in that regard would be in line with the Geneva Convention on refugees and in line with the European convention on human rights I think drawing a line between the British approach and any European approach is correct, which is why the European discussion revolves around screening potential asylum seekers, processing them in another country and not deporting them on a ticket outward. what is the British plan and it is quite different in the sense that in that way there are countries that receive people even for screening tests.

Well yes, I mean you are right that the EU is looking at it in a different way, although I think there would be individual member states that would be quite tempted by the British approach. Certainly Denmark was in talks with Rwanda about taking in asylum seekers or refugees, it was now unclear whether it was simply to process them or send them there for Well, yes, and Denmark abandoned that approach after coming under a lot of criticism from other EU member states and therefore Denmark is now in the business of seeking an EU approach, so there is that differentiation, but again, you know this.

The EU migration pact is a fairly broad new set of policies that, uh, certainly EU governments are expected to discourage people from trying to enter Europe simply for economic reasons; those types of people would see their applications processed much faster than them. If it were accelerated, there would be frontline detention for those types of asylum seekers or immigrants, and even women and children could face detention and that has caused a lot of unrest and dissension in the European political sphere, but again, I think it would be safe. To say that, while Europe wants to be tougher than it has been, yes on this issue, they have not gone as far as the British Rwanda model at the moment.