Labour and Tory MPs accuse Boris of rolling out ‘unethical’ Rwanda migrant plan as ‘dead cat’ strategy to dodge fury over PartyGate fine
- Ministers yesterday finalised ‘world-first’ £120million Rwanda migration deal
- Government’s plan faces massive backlash with claims it is cruel and expensive
- But MPs from both sides of the house have criticised ‘dead cat’ distraction ploy
- Boris Johnson this week accepted a £50 fine for June 19, 2020 ‘birthday party’
MPs have today accused Boris Johnson of using his £120million plan to ship migrants to Rwanda as a ‘dead cat’ distraction method to divert attention from the embarrassment of his Partygate fine.
Ministers yesterday finalised a ‘world-first’ deal with the Rwandan government – best known for a 1994 brutal campaign of genocide that left up to 800,000 Tutsi people dead – to host economic migrants turned away from Britain’s shores.
Officials believe the agreement to ‘off-shore’ the processing of asylum seekers will deter thousands of migrants from crossing the Channel in dinghies, saving lives and cutting off income from the criminal gangs that control the trade.
But the government’s plan has already faced a massive public backlash, with claims that it is both cruel and expensive, as MPs from both sides of the house now start turning on the Prime Minister amid a week of turbulence.
Labour MP Lucy Powell described Mr Johnson’s plan to send Channel migrants 4,000 miles away as an ‘incredibly expensive, unethical and unworkable plan’, that was serving to distract the public from the real issue at the heart of government.
‘Call me a cynic or sceptical, but it’s hard not to see this announcement within the context of the Prime Minister looking for something to distract attention from his own law-breaking,’ she told TalkTV.
‘I’m afraid this is a lot more about dealing with the Prime Minister’s own sinking boat of a government than it is about boats coming across the channel.’
Meanwhile, Tory MP Tobias Ellwood, an outspoken critic of Mr Johnson in recent months, said the highly-controversial plan was ‘a massive distraction’ from his £50 fine over his 56th birthday bash in Number 10 in June 2020.
‘He’s trying to make an announcement today on migration, and all of this is a massive distraction,’ Mr Ellwood told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
‘It’s not going away. It is a crisis. It requires crisis management. There needs to be a plan.’
Mr Johnson, his wife Carrie and Chancellor Rishi Sunak apologised for the Partygate scandal and paid up after being handed £50 fixed penalty notices this week. Pictured: Mr Johnson at a visit to a school in Hemel Hempstead on his birthday on June 19, 2020
Dozens more migrants were rescued by border patrol officers on Thursday after arriving into the Port of Dover, Kent via small boat
Hope House, a £19-a-night hostel in the Nyabugogo district of Kigali, Rwanda will be the first place asylum seekers stay for around three months while their claims are being processed before they are moved elsewhere
Labour MP Lucy Powell described Mr Johnson’s plan to send Channel migrants 4,000 miles away as an ‘incredibly expensive, unethical and unworkable plan’, that was serving to distract the public from the real issue at the heart of government
Opposition leader Keir Starmer today branded the PM ‘desperate’ and said the plans were ‘unworkable, extortionate and will cost the taxpayer billions of pounds’
Tory MP Tobias Ellwood, an outspoken critic of Mr Johnson in recent months, said the highly-controversial plan was ‘a massive distraction’ from his £50 fine over his 56th birthday bash in Number 10 in June 2020
Migrants travelling to the UK on small boats will be put on jets and sent to Rwanda while their applications are processed
How will the new Rwanda migrant scheme work?
Cross-channel arrivals assessed and anyone deemed an economic migrant rather than a refugee is sent to Rwanda
- Plan is limited to male migrants only
- Initial agreement worth £120million over five years
- Failed immigrants urged to start new life in Africa
- Initially based at hostel in Kigali
- Hope House is currently being used as budget accommodation for tourists
- Privately owned, the East African nation’s government is understood to be in negotiations to lease the property
- Royal Navy to take over Channel policing role from Border Force from today
- PM attacked ‘a formidable army of politically motivated lawyers’ who have thwarted previous action
- PM: ‘Our compassion may be infinite but our capacity to help people is not. We can’t ask the British taxpayer to write a blank cheque to cover the costs of anyone who might want to come and live here.’
As part of the new £120m Rwanda plan, it is understood Channel migrants will be processed in the UK, where officials will determine whether they are genuine asylum seekers.
If they are deemed to be economic migrants, they will be sent to Rwanda, where schemes will be put in place to help them build a new life.
It is thought that in other cases, all asylum processing will take place after the claimant arrives in Rwanda. Britain will pay the costs of their resettlement.
Hope House, a £19-a-night hostel in Nyabugogo, the Gasabo district of Kigali, will be the first place asylum seekers stay for around three months while their claims are being processed before they are moved elsewhere.
The complex has 50 rooms at present and can accommodate around 100 people with up to two people per room and sharing communal bathrooms.
But there are plans to expand the facility by building more accommodation blocks, eventually seeing it offer 150 rooms and be able to sleep up to 300 people.
Asylum seekers are expected to be provided meals three times a day to eat in a communal dining room, with some kitchen facilities also available for those with special dietary requirements.
Last month Conservative former minister Andrew Mitchell said housing asylum seekers at the Ritz hotel would be cheaper than offshoring, claiming the cost to the British taxpayer would be £2million per person, per year.
Opposition leader Keir Starmer branded the PM ‘desperate’ and said the plans were ‘unworkable, extortionate and will cost the taxpayer billions of pounds’.
And First Minister of Wales Mark Drakeford called the Government’s plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda ‘a cynical distraction from the Prime Minister’s law breaking’.
He tweeted: ‘The UK Government’s plans to send asylum seekers and refugees to Rwanda is cruel and inhumane. This is not the way to treat people seeking safety and sanctuary.
‘This is nothing more than a cynical distraction from the Prime Minister’s law breaking.’
Rwanda is a landlocked country in central and eastern Africa best known in the west for the horrific 1994 ethnic genocide.
In just 100 days of a brutal civil war, up to 800,000 Tutsi people were murdered, with many of them hacked to death in their homes by armed militias of the Hutu majority.
Up to half a million women were raped as violence gripped the country, often with neighbours turning on neighbours.
The carnage provoked horror and condemnation around the world, and the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front later won the war and forced those responsible for the murder into exile.
But while the country is more stable today, it still has a highly questionable human rights record.
Earlier this week the US State Department produced its annual analysis of the country.
It reported ‘significant human rights issues’ with the Government, including:
- unlawful or arbitrary killings
- forced disappearance
- torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment
- harsh and life-threatening prison conditions
- arbitrary detention
- political prisoners or detainees
- arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy
It added: ‘The government took some steps to prosecute or punish officials who committed abuses and acts of corruption, including within the security services, but impunity involving civilian officials and some members of the state security forces was a problem.’
In a separate report, Amnesty International reports similar findings.
While noting the Kagame government had acted to help women prosecuted for having abortions, and to prosecute those accused of genocide, it added: ‘Violations of the rights to a fair trial, freedom of expression and privacy continued, alongside enforced disappearances, allegations of torture and excessive use of force.’
Speaking about the deal with Rwanda, Home Secretary Priti Patel said: ‘This is very much, number one, a partnership.
‘Clearly we engage in dialogue and we have been for over nine months now.
‘But Rwanda has a very unique history in terms of refugees and resettlement, resettlement in particular. First and foremost, Rwanda is a safe and secure country with the respect for the rule of law, and clearly a range of institutions that have evolved and developed over time.
‘If I may say so, Rwanda has been very forward leaning, and has been very dynamic in the conversations that we have had as well around, yes, economic growth and the partnership, but respect for people and giving them the ability to find new opportunities, but effectively restart their lives, rebuild careers, potentially, and settle here successfully.’
Dr Peter William Walsh, Senior Researcher at the Migration Observatory in Oxford, said it would face ‘all kinds of logistical challenges’.
Amnesty International says there are still concerns over ‘enforced disappearances, allegations of torture and excessive use of force’.
Earlier this month, Refugee Minister Lord Harrington said there was ‘no possibility’ of migrants being sent there.
But Mr Johnson today brushed aside criticism of the ‘dynamic’ plans as he described Rwanda as one of the safest countries in the world.
The news comes just two days after Mr Johnson, his wife Carrie and Chancellor Rishi Sunak apologised and paid up after being handed fixed penalty notices (FPNs) over a party for the PM’s 56th birthday in June 2020 while the nation was locked down.
The evidence of lawbreaking – the first by a serving prime minister – came after months in which Mr Johnson has insisted to MPs and the public that he broke no rules.
There are understood to be few signs of any real push to oust the PM, or of any influx of letters from backbenchers to the 1922 Committee calling for a leadership contest.
Downing Street is however worried that Mr Johnson could receive several fines if the police find he broke lockdown rules at other gatherings – as a handful of Tory MPs started turning the screw this week.
Writing in the Telegraph, Lord Frost warned that the ‘drip drip effect of continuous criticism’ of Mr Johnson over Partygate ‘could easily undermine the Prime Minister further and leave Conservative voters despairing about moving on’.
In order to ‘move on’ from the Partygate row, Lord Frost called on the PM to offer a full explanation for Covid rule breaches in Downing Street, which Mr Johnson has promised to do.
Conservative former Cabinet minister Karen Bradley also suggested Mr Johnson should step aside.
‘I will spend the next few days consulting my constituents and will decide on what action to take after listening to them,’ she told the Stoke-on-Trent Live website.
‘But I do wish to make it clear that if I had been a minister found to have broken the laws that I passed, I would be tendering my resignation now.’
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