Dress rehearsal or election stunt?
Great Britain deports people to Rwanda for the first time
May 1, 2024, 8:36 a.m
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The Tories are pushing their controversial Rwanda plan through Parliament. Sunak needs success before the upcoming local elections. Labor is now accusing the Prime Minister of an election campaign: before the regulation comes into force, a man can be flown to the East African country for 3,000 pounds.
Even before the controversial plan for mass deportations to Rwanda was implemented, Great Britain persuaded a rejected asylum seeker to voluntarily leave the East African country in exchange for thousands of pounds. As British media reported, the man, who comes from an unnamed African country, traveled to Rwanda on Monday by scheduled flight. There he received around 3,000 pounds (3,500 euros) as entry money from the British treasury.
The British Home Office confirmed the reports. A government spokesman said the country was now able to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. The action is not part of the conservative government’s much-criticized plan to deport thousands of irregularly entered asylum seekers to Rwanda, regardless of their origin. The “Sun” nevertheless spoke of a historic moment that shows that it is possible to deport asylum seekers to a third country. In contrast, the opposition Labor Party criticized it for being a PR campaign during the election campaign.
A few hours before the reports about the first deportation to Rwanda, the British Home Office had announced the goal of sending 5,700 people to Rwanda by the end of the year. The East African country had agreed to this “in principle,” it said.
“The Tories are so desperate to send any flight to Rwanda before the local elections that they have now paid someone to fly there,” said Labor domestic affairs spokeswoman Yvette Cooper. In the local elections in England this Thursday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party is threatened with a bitter defeat.
Critics see the government’s deportation plan as a breach of international rules. The deportation flights to Rwanda are scheduled to begin in a few weeks. However, the authorities do not know the whereabouts of more than 3,500 of the 5,700 people initially scheduled for deportation, as the Times newspaper reported.