LABOUR have refused to rule out a “copy and paste” of the Tories’ Rwanda scheme for migrant deportations.
The UK Government consistently opposed the Conservatives’ plans to send asylum seekers to central Africa for processing in a bid to discourage small boat crossings over the Channel – and scrapping it altogether was one of Keir Starmer’s first acts after becoming Prime Minister.
Starmer said the scheme would "never" have worked as a deterrent and was only a "gimmick".
However, over the weekend reports emerged that Labour were considering sending asylum seekers to migrant centres in the western Balkans and other third-party countries.
UK Government sources told The Times that ministers are planning to approach countries in the western Balkans including Albania, Serbia, Bosnia, and North Macedonia to establish the scheme.
In the Commons on Tuesday, the SNP’s depute Westminster leader Pete Wishart said: “During the asylum committee proceedings, I said to the minister that it's only going to be a matter of time before they concoct some sort of Rwanda-style deportation scheme.
“Even I didn't think it would come so quickly – if weekend press reports are to be believed.
“Can she say these reports are totally not true, and will she now rule out ever implementing a third-party-country deportation scheme like the Conservatives did?”
Asylum Minister Angela Eagle refused to do so.
Instead, the Labour MP only responded: “I’m not going to comment on leaks.”
Speaking afterwards, Wishart said: “From austerity, to Brexit, to how they treat asylum seekers – it is clearer by the day that this Labour Government is seeking to copy and paste the very worst of Tory policy.
“Today’s non-answer from the Home Office is as close as we will get to confirmation that Labour are planning to resurrect their own version of the cruel Rwanda scheme.
In the Commons, Eagle was challenged by Conservative MP Roger Gale on the Rwanda scheme and Labour’s cut to international aid – which has been controversially slashed by 40% to just 0.3% of GDP in a bid to boost defence spending.
Gale said: “The Conservatives’ Rwanda scheme, I believe, and this Government’s much vaunted ‘smash the gangs’ will not solve that [migration] problem, there is no quick fix. The only solution will be long-term and international.
“In that context, does [Eagle] believe that cutting overseas aid is going to do anything other than worsen the problem?”
The Labour minister replied: “I suggest that [Gale] raises that issue with the Chancellor.”
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he has met people in Calais who are “desperate, victims of war, human rights abuse, environmental degradation and sheer poverty and desperation”, adding: “They don’t cross the Channel without some reason to do it.”
Eagle said she accepted the independent MP’s point about the “desperate situation” that people are in.
She added: “They could claim asylum in the country they are in, and we need to look and work with our counterparts in the European Union and along all of the routes to see what we can do to divert those people who are seeking a better life in our country and see if we can look after them closer to home.”
