New UK Government Wants to Recoup Funds from Scrapped Rwanda Asylum Deal
Following a resounding victory in last week’s general elections, the new Labour Party government in the UK has scrapped a deal it has long viewed as an expensive gimmick.
This post has been updated with the latest information as at 7 p.m. GMT+2 on July 10, 2024.
The new British government is looking at salvaging some of the money it has already sent to Rwanda as part of its now scrapped asylum deal with the east African country. According to the BBC, the UK had already sent £220 million ($282 million) to Rwanda by the end of 2023, and any amounts recovered will be used to set up a new Border Security Command to deal with small boat crossings.
In his first interview as British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer announced that the policy to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda will be immediately scrapped, keeping to one of his campaign promises. “The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started. It’s never been a deterrent,” he told reporters.
Starmer’s comments tow the long-held stance of his political party that the UK-Rwanda deal is an expensive gimmick. “Spending £400m ($512 million) on a plan not to get anybody to Rwanda whilst losing 4,000 people is not a plan, it's a farce,” Starmer said back in January while parliament debated the revamped deal before it was passed in April.
With the Labour Party winning a landslide victory in last week’s election, the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act is set to be abolished. After a failed attempt at moving the first set of asylum seekers in 2022, former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was determined to “get planes in the air,” but decided to wait till after the election, making it one of his most talked about campaign points.
The plan to relocate asylum seekers who travel in on small boats was widely criticized by rights groups. The bill also passed despite a Supreme Court ruling that questioned the human rights record of the Rwandan government, which made it legal conundrum in and of itself. Now, with Sunak’s Conservative Party becoming a minority in parliament, there’s going to be a clear removal of the asylum plan.
Alain Mukuralinda, a Rwandan government spokesperson on Tuesday told the state's television that paying back the money was not stipulated in the agreement. "Let this be clear, paying back the money was never part of the agreement," Mukuralinda was quoted as saying by the BBC.
The Rwandan government hasn’t yet commented on the immediate scrapping of the deal by the new British government, and it remains to be seen if it will return some of the money already received from the UK.
“[The money is] only going to be used if those people will come. If they don't come, we can return the money,” Rwandan President Paul Kagametold BBC earlier this year. However, a government spokesperson added that the Rwandan government was under no obligation to make any returns.