The Rwanda scheme isn’t a migrant deterrent – it’s a voter distraction
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Who does Rishi Sunak think he’s kidding? This week, the Prime Minister claimed that the Rwanda scheme – when it eventually gets going – will act as an “indispensable deterrent” against migrants crossing the Channel in small boats.
Frankly, though, I very much doubt it. Given that the risk of drowning evidently doesn’t deter them, why should the risk of being flown to Rwanda? Is living in Rwanda a more terrifying prospect than death? Surely not. After all, Rwanda’s a nice place. Or so our own Government says. It’s just passed a bill, decreeing Rwanda to be officially lovely.
But then, perhaps I’m missing the point. Which is that, from Mr Sunak’s perspective, the most important thing about the Rwanda scheme is not that it works, but that we all keep endlessly talking about it.
Let’s face it: the entire plan is really just a cynical distraction, designed by the Government to pull the wool over voters’ eyes. Make them focus on the relatively tiny number of migrants arriving on small boats (30,000 last year) – so that they overlook the absolutely vast number arriving by legal means. Because, if voters stopped to think about how many migrants the Government actively chooses to let in, they might get quite cross.
Last year, the UK recorded a net immigration figure of 672,000. That number is bigger than the population of any city in this country except for London or Birmingham. Yet most voters don’t realise it. They’re blissfully unaware.
In January, the Onward think tank published the results of a poll, asking the public how many migrants they thought entered Britain last year. The average guess was just 70,000. Which is barely more than a tenth of the actual net immigration figure.
So, if Mr Sunak’s plan is to stop voters noticing the true scale of immigration on his watch, I suppose it’s working.
Last month, as it happens, Suella Braverman said that, when she was Home Secretary, Mr Sunak was always happy to have meetings with her about the small boats. Indeed, they had such meetings “every week”, sometimes “twice a week”. But whenever she wanted to have a meeting with him about cutting legal migration, she claims that he avoided her. In her own words: “On legal migration, I was unable to get a hearing with the Prime Minister for 12 months.”
If what Mrs Braverman says is true, therefore, I suppose the answer to my opening question is obvious. I asked: Who does Rishi Sunak think he’s kidding?
Quite plainly, it’s us. When it comes to immigration, he’s playing us all for fools.
