Conservative British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak insists that his plan to deter illegal migration is “on track.” But the illegal migrants themselves—and, more importantly, those who are paid vast sums to traffick them—clearly aren’t listening.
As border debates raged on in Parliament on Wednesday, more migrants crossed the Channel to Britain than on any other day so far this year. The 514 total topped the previous high of 401 recorded earlier this month.
One migrant was also reportedly stabbed while on a small boat crammed with 60 people—yet another tragic illustration of the cost of ministers bungling solving the problem of Channel crossings.
The ‘Rwanda plan,’ which is at the centre of Sunak’s failing efforts to stop illegal migration, is supposed to deter these crossings by sending illegal arrivals to the African nation for asylum processing. The first flight suffered a last-minute cancellation two years ago following legal action. Since then, Sunak’s government has spent millions of pounds on the scheme but has failed to deport a single migrant.
His scheme was knocked back again on Wednesday when the House of Lords, Parliament’s unelected upper chamber, refused to pass the legislation and voted to reinstate seven watering-down amendments that Sunak had tried to resist.
The newspapers are now reporting that the first deportation flight to Rwanda won’t take off until June instead of May. But even this date seems unlikely. In fact, former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who has long criticised Conservative governments for failing to get a hold of illegal migration, said this week that even if legislation does pass, flights will likely never take off.
According to The National, whose tagline “The world has borders. Our stories don’t” is tested by the Conservative Party’s loose grip on illegal migration, more than 3,500 Channel migrants have made the perilous journey to Britain so far this year. Other reports put the total at over 4,000, which is 10% higher than at the same time last year.
As bad as his record on this issue may be, Sunak continues to insist that Labour—who he accused of trying to “delay, disrupt or destroy that [Rwanda] plan”—will do an even worse job
