Keir Starmer scraps UK plans to deport Rwandan migrants | Politics News

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said the country will not continue the previous Conservative government's policy of deporting asylum seekers from Rwanda, a move that has been welcomed as a long-awaited move by human rights advocates.

The Rwanda plan was dead and buried before it even began. It was never a deterrent, Starmer said at his first press conference on Saturday after Labour’s landslide victory in the general election.

“We are not prepared to continue to use tactics that do not deter,” he told reporters after the cabinet meeting, describing the plan as a problem we are inheriting.

Parliament approved a controversial bill in April declaring Rwanda a safe third country, bypassing a previous British Supreme Court ruling that the system was unlawful on human rights grounds.

Authorities began detaining asylum seekers in May.

The then prime minister, Rishi Sunak, pushed the policy forward by promising to stop migrants and asylum seekers arriving in small boats from mainland Europe.

Human rights activists and critics of the Sunak government have condemned the plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda rather than process them at home as inhumane.

They raised concerns about the East African country's human rights record and said asylum seekers face the risk of being sent back to countries where they could be at risk.

But when faced with opposition in parliament, Sunak said in April: “There are no ifs, no buts. This flight is going to Rwanda.”

In recent years, tens of thousands of refugees fleeing war and poverty in Africa, the Middle East and Asia have reached Britain in small boats, using the dangerous method of travel as a means of human smuggling.

Starmer told a news conference on Saturday that the Rwanda plan was widely expected to fail.

He told reporters that the gangs running this operation in particular know that there is less than a 1 percent chance of them going to Rwanda.

There is a good chance that you will not go, will not be processed, and will therefore be staying in paid accommodation for a very long time.

Sonya Skeetz, chief executive of Freedom from Torture, an organization that helps people seeking asylum in the UK, welcomed Starmer's announcement.

She told Al Jazeera on Saturday that it was a huge victory for the hundreds and thousands of activists, refugees, lawyers and people fighting the brutal cash-for-human trafficking scheme across the country.

Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard this morning urged the new Labour government to fulfill its election promise to scrap the Rwanda Agreement.

“Our asylum system must focus on ensuring that all refugees, regardless of how they arrive, have access to security and certainty in a fair and efficient manner,” Callamard wrote in a social media post.

She added that it was also required by our international obligations, the rule of law and basic respect for all human beings.

But Suela Breverman, a Tory hardliner on immigration who is seen as a strong candidate to succeed Sunack as party leader, has criticised Starmer's plans.

She said on Saturday that after years of hard work, acts of parliament and millions of pounds spent on plans that would have worked if properly implemented, there was a huge problem ahead and I think Keir Starmer is the one causing it.

With the number of people arriving in the UK at a record high in the first half of this year, it is unclear what action Starmer will take to tackle the migration crisis.

Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, told The Associated Press that the Labor government needs to find a solution for small boats crossing the English Channel.

We may need to come up with a different solution to address that specific problem.

Freedom from Torture Skates also said that if governments are serious about tackling forced migration, global cooperation must be part of the solution.

We clearly expect the new government to avoid externalizing refugee policy, she said.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera's Rory Charlands, reporting from London on Saturday afternoon, said it was still unclear what a Starmer Labour government would look like, apart from the Rwanda policy announcement.

Charlès said there had been a lot of talk at the press conference about the changes the government would bring to British life and politics.

His main theme is that the Tory turmoil is over, Challands added, and for the first time in a long time, the country will be treated first by the government in power, not by the party.

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