Labour will stop the small boats
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Dangerous small boat crossings undermine our border security, fuel soaring profits for criminal smuggler gangs, add to the chaos in our asylum system, and put lives at risk. We need urgent action to stop this perilous criminal trade and to strengthen Britain’s borders.
But the extortionately expensive and failing Rwanda scheme, which only covers 1% of those arriving in the UK, is making things worse by distracting Ministers from the serious work that must be done. It’s time for a new approach.
The Rwanda scheme was announced two years ago this month. Since then more Home Secretaries than asylum seekers have been sent to Kigali. While the astronomical costs have gone up, the promised size of the scheme has gone down, and the chaos has got worse.
Half a billion pounds of British taxpayers’ money is being sent to Rwanda for just 300 asylum seekers to go, costing an eye-watering £2 million per person.
It would cost less to put someone up for a year in the Paris Ritz, or take a trip into space on the Virgin Galactic. Ministers claim it will save money here at home but the opposite is true. The policy only covers 1% of asylum seekers and there is no plan for the other 99% who will now join a permanent costly backlog, with the taxpayer footing the bill.
Little wonder that so few people believe the Rwanda plan will work. The current Home Secretary, James Cleverly, reportedly described the scheme as “batshit” before he took up post . His predecessor Suella Braverman says the policy is just “a token flight” before an election which won’t work. Even Rishi Sunak tried to cancel the scheme when he was Chancellor. This entire policy is just an extortionate electioneering press release, it isn’t a serious plan for Government.
Trying to run the country like this is damaging. It has bust the Home Office budget and left Ministers ignoring military advice as they insist that Afghan interpreters who helped our armed forces should still be included in the Rwanda scheme.
When lives are at risk in the Channel, this obsession with the Rwanda gimmick is distracting everyone from the serious policies we need to tackle the problem.
Labour’s plan is practical. We would put the Rwanda money into strengthening our border security instead. That means new counter-terror style powers, new international intelligence sharing agreements and new cross-border police working with European partners to smash the criminal gang networks and stop the boats reaching the French coast in the first place.
We would clear the asylum backlog with a new fast track system for safe countries, end asylum hotel use, and set up a major new Returns and Enforcement Unit to swiftly return those with no right to be in the UK. Returns have dropped by nearly 50% since the Conservatives took office, undermining the credibility of the entire system. We have to restore order to the border.
But instead of these common sense plans, this week the Government will pass its new Rwanda law and then immediately write another £50m cheque to the Kigali Government. It will be the third new Conservative law on Channel crossings in two years, each one introduced with a fanfare of promises, each one fizzling out into failure.
Most people in Britain want to see strong border security, and a properly controlled and managed asylum system so the UK does our bit to help those fleeing persecution and conflict, but so those who have no right to be here are swiftly returned. Under the Conservatives we have none of those things – they have broken the asylum system, bust the Home Office budget and badly undermined Britain’s borders.
We can’t carry on like this. Instead of the gimmicks, it’s time we got a proper grip, and that’s what Labour will do.
Yvette Cooper is Shadow Home Secretary of the United Kingdom
