How the Rwanda plan proves that Brexit has been a failure Nothing sums up the whole Rwanda fiasco quite like Robert Jenrick resigning from his job as Immigration Secretary over Sunak’s Bill to move forward with the plan, only to then not even vote against the bill anyhow. Yet it fits in perfectly with the mood around the whole thing, which reminds everyone of when Mrs May was trying to get her Withdrawal Agreement through parliament in 2019, and her own party tearing itself to pieces as a result.
If 35,000 asylum seekers p.a borrow all they can get to spend months or years trekking thousands of miles and risk their lives at least once getting across La Manche, then a paper threat of sending up to 200 maximum to Rwanda does not look like a credible threat or deterent. This is further emphasised by the lack of media coverage showing people being deported there, as there are none.
These are damaged vulnerable people who have risked all to get to the UK. Much larger numbers go to Germany or USA and the largest numbers are in countries neighbouring conflicts. The 200 theoretically to be sent to Rwanda will probably never happen and even if it did, does not remotely weigh up as a credible deterent to discourage those poor people from flocking here.
The jokers are the Tory government and poor tax payer being fleeced so far for £240m yet the expensive chartered planes and security arrangements have not even started yet. No doubt there will be Tories with their snouts into some of that cash.
This Rwanda plan sounds a lot like the US Republican plan for dealing with immigration from our South, which boils down to threatening desperate people with getting sent back where they came from as a deterrent, and building a Wall that you can get over or through with a few simple tools. Doesn't make any sense here either, because as Nick said it's not about sense.
While I appreciate the comparison in some ways, the true parallel would be much, much more fruity:
1. A man is elected US president on the promise of "taking care of immigration, once and for all". After taking office, he pitches a bizarre idea for how to tackle it: the US will ship every illegal immigrant to Chile, based on an agreement with that country.
2. Chile agrees to the proposal, but on the proviso that it will only take 1,000 illegal immigrants every year. The US government then gives Chile 1 billion dollars, before a single person is transferred from the US to Chile.
3. Congress and the Senate become gridlocked by cross party confusion on the issue: left wing politicians saying the "Chile deal" is both impractical and immoral, the right wing politicians pointing out that sending illegal immigrants to Chile will be extremely expensive and won't even solve the actual perceived problem of illegal immigration.
4. Chile asks for another 300 million bucks, still before a single person has been transferred. It is given. Pressure mounts on the US executive, from both sides of Congress for different reasons. It is clear to any sane person by now that the Chile idea is bad. Yet the president doubles double and stakes his entire presidency on getting the "Chile deal" through both houses, even though it won't get through, and even if it did, there would still be loads of illegal immigration into the the States across the US-Mexican border, and everyone who was upset about that in the first place would be even more upset about it after being promised the "Chile deal" would solve everything.
The £290m they have already spent or committed next year to Rwanda would easily fund processing of the backlog of asylum cases, save the millions being spent on hotels and accommodation barges, and allow those admitted to offset the current shortage of labour. The Tories falsely claim Labour has no immigration policy when in fact they are the ones without an effective or sane policy.
The Rwanda policy actively makes asylum and immigration issues worse. It is criminally damaging.
So called EU "free movement" was demonised in this country. Yet it was responsible to allow about 200,000 p.a into the UK, all employed, paying taxes and doing useful stuff. It also gave the rest of us all rights that we no longer have. Or as Father Jack once said, "stuck on this feckin' Island".
Without FoM and outside the EU we are up to around 1.4million net migrants in two years. In addition, what some people in polite company are unwilling to mention is that this change has replaced mainly white Europeans with those mainly of a darker hue. You and I if guardian readers would be fine with that change but the xenophobes who formed the core of the Leave vote must be seething over this shift and I suspect it will be seen in the shift of core Tory vote to other hard right parties, centred on Farage's latest, Reform UK. They will fail to win seats and struggle for any 2nd places because of the dispersed nature of their English and Welsh support, but will help put the final boot in to the Tories, taking their numbers down to a potentially existential core. They can't find a leader out of 350+ MP's. How will they manage with 160 or fewer forecasted? Without a leader for what will be a badly failed and losing party, how would they come back? Lets hope they don't and that what replaces them is not worse.
One point is missing from your analysis: seen from the EU, the history of deportation to Rwanda with exit from the ECHR is a cesspool of chilling racism, a xenophobic government that recalls the horrors of the last century. The worst part is that the complaints are about the cost of the operation, not the morals.
If 35,000 asylum seekers p.a borrow all they can get to spend months or years trekking thousands of miles and risk their lives at least once getting across La Manche, then a paper threat of sending up to 200 maximum to Rwanda does not look like a credible threat or deterent. This is further emphasised by the lack of media coverage showing people being deported there, as there are none.
These are damaged vulnerable people who have risked all to get to the UK. Much larger numbers go to Germany or USA and the largest numbers are in countries neighbouring conflicts. The 200 theoretically to be sent to Rwanda will probably never happen and even if it did, does not remotely weigh up as a credible deterent to discourage those poor people from flocking here.
The jokers are the Tory government and poor tax payer being fleeced so far for £240m yet the expensive chartered planes and security arrangements have not even started yet. No doubt there will be Tories with their snouts into some of that cash.
This Rwanda plan sounds a lot like the US Republican plan for dealing with immigration from our South, which boils down to threatening desperate people with getting sent back where they came from as a deterrent, and building a Wall that you can get over or through with a few simple tools. Doesn't make any sense here either, because as Nick said it's not about sense.
While I appreciate the comparison in some ways, the true parallel would be much, much more fruity:
1. A man is elected US president on the promise of "taking care of immigration, once and for all". After taking office, he pitches a bizarre idea for how to tackle it: the US will ship every illegal immigrant to Chile, based on an agreement with that country.
2. Chile agrees to the proposal, but on the proviso that it will only take 1,000 illegal immigrants every year. The US government then gives Chile 1 billion dollars, before a single person is transferred from the US to Chile.
3. Congress and the Senate become gridlocked by cross party confusion on the issue: left wing politicians saying the "Chile deal" is both impractical and immoral, the right wing politicians pointing out that sending illegal immigrants to Chile will be extremely expensive and won't even solve the actual perceived problem of illegal immigration.
4. Chile asks for another 300 million bucks, still before a single person has been transferred. It is given. Pressure mounts on the US executive, from both sides of Congress for different reasons. It is clear to any sane person by now that the Chile idea is bad. Yet the president doubles double and stakes his entire presidency on getting the "Chile deal" through both houses, even though it won't get through, and even if it did, there would still be loads of illegal immigration into the the States across the US-Mexican border, and everyone who was upset about that in the first place would be even more upset about it after being promised the "Chile deal" would solve everything.
Fair cop, guv. Your guys beat Trump, and boy does that say something.
The £290m they have already spent or committed next year to Rwanda would easily fund processing of the backlog of asylum cases, save the millions being spent on hotels and accommodation barges, and allow those admitted to offset the current shortage of labour. The Tories falsely claim Labour has no immigration policy when in fact they are the ones without an effective or sane policy.
The Rwanda policy actively makes asylum and immigration issues worse. It is criminally damaging.
So called EU "free movement" was demonised in this country. Yet it was responsible to allow about 200,000 p.a into the UK, all employed, paying taxes and doing useful stuff. It also gave the rest of us all rights that we no longer have. Or as Father Jack once said, "stuck on this feckin' Island".
Without FoM and outside the EU we are up to around 1.4million net migrants in two years. In addition, what some people in polite company are unwilling to mention is that this change has replaced mainly white Europeans with those mainly of a darker hue. You and I if guardian readers would be fine with that change but the xenophobes who formed the core of the Leave vote must be seething over this shift and I suspect it will be seen in the shift of core Tory vote to other hard right parties, centred on Farage's latest, Reform UK. They will fail to win seats and struggle for any 2nd places because of the dispersed nature of their English and Welsh support, but will help put the final boot in to the Tories, taking their numbers down to a potentially existential core. They can't find a leader out of 350+ MP's. How will they manage with 160 or fewer forecasted? Without a leader for what will be a badly failed and losing party, how would they come back? Lets hope they don't and that what replaces them is not worse.
One point is missing from your analysis: seen from the EU, the history of deportation to Rwanda with exit from the ECHR is a cesspool of chilling racism, a xenophobic government that recalls the horrors of the last century. The worst part is that the complaints are about the cost of the operation, not the morals.
Nick, you’re too hard on the Uk population. Its the current govt and its suporter that no ideas and what it feels like clue