In a significant policy statement following his party’s decisive electoral victory, Britain’s new Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, announced that he intends to abandon a contentious proposal to send thousands of asylum seekers from Britain to Rwanda.
It marks a departure from the previous Conservative government’s plan, announced in 2022, to relocate migrants who had entered Britain without authorisation to the East African nation, intending to stem the influx of asylum seekers arriving by small boats.
However, no one was sent to Rwanda under the plan because of years of legal challenges.
At his inaugural press briefing as prime minister, Starmer said that the Rwanda policy would be scrapped because its effectiveness as a deterrent was limited as it would only result in the removal of only about 1% of asylum seekers.
“The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started. It’s never been a deterrent,” Starmer said. “I’m not prepared to continue with gimmicks that don’t act as a deterrent.”
Starmer won one of the largest parliamentary majorities in modern British history on Friday, but he faces several challenges, including improving public services and reviving a weak economy.