Starmer to scrap Rwanda deportation plan

London, July 6

As the newly elected British Prime Minister Keir Starmer presided over his first Cabinet meeting on Saturday, he created “Mission Delivery Boards” for his ministers to drive through the “change” he said the public had voted for.

In a widely expected and one of his first acts after assuming office, he stated that the government would scrap the controversial Conservative policy to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

“The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started,” Starmer said in his first news conference, adding that it never acted as a deterrent, but almost the opposite.

The Rwanda plan was aimed at curbing migrants from making dangerous English Channel crossings. But it was beset with challenges over human rights issues and never managed to deport a single person even as UK spent hundreds of millions of dollars in a pact with the east African nation.

Talking about the “Mission Delivery Boards”, Starmer said: “We will have Mission Delivery Boards to drive through the change that we need, and I will be chairing those boards to make sure that it’s clear to everyone that they are my priorities in the government,” he said.

He further stressed that security and defence was the first duty of his government and his government would make clear UK’s unshakable support of NATO towards Ukraine. He also stressed his government’s commitment to growing the economy, which his administration is relying on to deliver vital investment in public services without hiking taxes or borrowing more cash.

Notably, the new Labour-led government faces a series of challenges upon taking office, including an NHS waiting list of millions of patients, an overstretched prison system and sluggish economic growth. — AP/