The result of the general elections in the United Kingdom in early July 2024 saw a large victory for the Labour Party for the first time since several years.
In one of the first public declarations released by the recently elected United Kingdom (UK) Prime Minister (PM) Keir Starmer discussed the agreement between the UK and Rwanda to send asylum seekers to apply for refugee status in the African State.
PM Starmer said on 6 July 2024 that, in his opinion, the Rwanda deal was “dead and buried” and that he has no intention to continue supporting a measure that does not act as a deterrent towards immigration but rather the contrary. This declaration, however, was not subsequently confirmed in any official UK government statement.
The UK-Rwanda plan, announced for the first time by PM Boris Johnson in early 2022, consisted in a 5 years long deal between the two countries in which Rwanda was processing, among other things, applications for asylum to the United Kingdom. The plan was tested many times in front of UK Courts, in particular by a UK Supreme Court judgment that declared at least part of it to be unlawful.
In the 17 July 2024 King’s Speech, which, despite being delivered by His Majesty King Charles III, is written by the government and sets up the priorities for the upcoming Parliamentary year, however, one of the key points to be considered for further political action is precisely about border and immigration management.
The UK government also published a press release “10 things to know about the King’s Speech“, where point n. 7 is entitled “Strengthen our border”. The government commits to “strengthen the border with a new bill that modernises the asylum and immigration system, including launching a new Border Security Command. The command will deploy more police and investigators to smash the criminal smuggling gangs, tackling the problem at source. The bill will give law enforcement new enhanced counter-terror style powers to destroy the evil business model of human trafficking”.
The attitude towards the strengthening of border controls while at the same time rejecting the externalisation of migration seems to be consistent with the position taken by PM Starmer during the electoral campaign, where the Labour leader Labour committed to “bring immigration numbers down” and to “control our [UK] borders’”.
It remains to be seen if this declaration made by the UK PM will be confirmed in any official government positions, as well as, if that will be the case, what will be the arrangements that the UK government will have to take to exit earlier from the agreement with the Rwanda government, who was expected to be paid at least £370m in the five years of the agreement.
Image credit: Prime Minister Keir Starmer prepares for King’s Speech, No 10 Downing Street Flickr.
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