Rishi Sunak’s ‘Rwanda plan’—meant to deter Channel crossings by sending asylum seekers to the East African nation to have their claims processed—will not work. Sunak himself has always known this, despite his persistent claim that “the plan is working.” Illegal migrants know this too, and are so undeterred that they are still crossing the English Channel into Britain, now in record numbers.
It was revealed on Friday, May 17th, that 9,681 migrants made the perilous journey in the first five months of this year. This is higher than the total for the first five months of any previous year since records began. And officials reckon the figure will top 10,000 this week.
It is no wonder that migrants continue to pay people smugglers to get them across the Channel; they know that once inside, the chance of them being deported to Rwanda is not just slim but almost non-existent. In turn, it is clear that the smugglers are the main customers for a thriving market in custom-made ‘small boats,’ commissioned to make a single trip across the English Channel. Everyone involved in the process exudes confidence―except for the UK electorate.
This was made all the more clear when The Independent revealed over the weekend that the Home Office has begun freeing people it detained for Rwanda flights. These have been released after a court granted them freedom of movement amid (yet more) legal challenges to the government.
According to the newspaper, government officials plan to continue detaining more illegal migrants to fill allocated detention spaces. But this task will surely have been made more difficult by the decision just last week to downsize the Home Office department tasked with detaining migrants ahead of planned Rwanda flights.
It is now feared that those granted release could simply abscond, joining the thousands of other migrants set for deportation who are simply “missing.”
All of this heaps humiliation on the ever-failing Safety of Rwanda Act, which UK Home Secretary James Cleverly still brazenly describes as “robust,” regardless of its misfortunes. In fact, it is about as robust as the small dinghies which continue to (more by luck than design) to bring in migrants ignoring Sunak’s alleged deterrent, leaving the safe country of France to come to Great Britain. And as the growing number of deaths in the Channel shows, that’s not very robust at all.
Readers should expect a further, repetitive-sounding update shortly on the Rwanda plan and its latest failure, scheduled for tomorrow―if not later today.
