The new Rwanda Plan

Lizzie, you’re all right then where you live, you want to try a place where they are inundated. If I wasn’t affected I would still look outside my comfort zone.

I notice that the Foreign Secretary has blamed Brexit for the asylum seeker problem. “We no longer have a returns policy as we did before Brexit”

Whitewavemark2

I notice that the Foreign Secretary has blamed Brexit for the asylum seeker problem. “We no longer have a returns policy as we did before Brexit”

Perhaps the Foreign Secretary. could also point out that under the last Labour government there was no huge backlog of asylum applications but that the tory 'austerity' from 2010 onwards cut public sector staff to the extent that the Home Office clearly couldn't cope with dealing with applications in a timely manner. And, of course, once the tories 'got Brexit done' the UK lost the Dublin Agreement... which has made a bad situation worse...

Lizzie, you’re all right then where you live, you want to try a place where they are inundated. If I wasn’t affected I would still look outside my comfort zone.

Allsorts there are a significant numbers of asylum seekers in my area. They are human beings like you and me. They would actually like to work and contribute to the community but, of course, their asylum claims take so long to process that they are left in limbo. They have fled from horrors in Syria and Afghanistan and simply want to be safe. In my area, they do no harm to anyone and are very respectful. We do not feel in any way ‘affected’ or ‘inundated’ - such negative language! Indeed, my ‘comfort zone’ as you put it, is enhanced by the thought that my community is giving refuge to vulnerable people. What is it about refugees that makes you dislike them so much?

Chris Phillips, minister of State, on Question time

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-68901786

“DR Congo is a different country to Rwanda, isn't it?"

Yes, I watched it last night Wyllow3. I thought Phillips looked an idiot throughout!

The expressions on the faces of the audience! (its a short video clip)

For some unknown reason, i feel embarassed watching this.

I knew that the Congo is in an appalling war torn situation but not that they are at war with Rwanda, just "next door".

I thought Victor Adebowale spoke so much sense on last night’s Question Time.

Yes - here it is starts on 13 minutes on the "sick note culture"
www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Victor+Adebowale+on+question+time+25+april&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:48bd246d,vid:R9KxDjGh-TY,st:0

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Wyllow3

I knew that the Congo is in an appalling war torn situation but not that they are at war with Rwanda, just "next door".

Rwanda isn’t at war with DRC, the national government doesn’t control the region bordering Rwanda. The hostilities are between Rwandan rebels based in DRC and the government.

There are also hostilities withe Burundi to the south and Islamic terrorists to the north, apart from that its peaceful and prosperous, for now.

Yes, point taken. have read up on details.
The peaceful and prosperous "for now" however isn't good in what is laid out to be a long term "solution"

nanna8

Station the navy in the channel and catch the people smugglers. Send them back to France . Not rocket science and the channel isn’t that big.

A vast 18 miles of English Channel, and our Navy/Border Force and Coastguard can't spot a small bot using RADAR, drones, binoculars or even the naked eye on a clear day - our government is basically telling us that they are useless ... OR our government is deliberately bringing them in??

Handy UN fighting force, already some conveniently house in barracks for when civil war breaks out here and our troops won't turn on their own. This is far scarier than it already looks.

I wanted to share some words from Margaret Owen President of Widows for Peace Through Democracy.

I have recently returned from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and have witnessed the appalling impact of Rwanda’s unlawful invasion on Congolese people living in North Kivu. Its armed militias are looting the mines, and massacring and displacing millions of civilians. Many Congolese women are now widows and many are survivors of sexual violence.

This invasion also impacts on Rwandans. There is clear evidence of how opponents of President Kagame who dare to criticise his war crimes are brutally silenced. Many Rwandans are seeking asylum in neighbouring countries.

Some 53% of Rwandans are not in work. Far from finding a job, any deportee could be forced to join the Rwanda-backed armed groups and participate in the horrendous war crimes perpetrated in eastern DRC. The Rwanda scheme must be stopped

That was published in July 2023.

The mines are cobalt mines - essential for the production of lithium batteries used in electric cars etc and therefore extremely valuable to any government which can exploit them.

From Global Conflict Tracker:

Clashes dramatically increased in February 2024, provoking international outrage and desperate humanitarian conditions. Though the eastern regions of DRC are the most violent, political violence exacerbated by December’s elections has contributed to a national state of political disorder and insecurity. In October 2023, the UN announced that the number of internally displaced people in DRC hadreached a record highof 6.9 million. The humanitarian disaster resulting from cyclical, violent conflict in the Congo, which has killed millions over the past three decades, continues to deepen.

Philp made the point that the majority of people arriving on small boats are single young men. He did not say where these men are coming from. If these are the people who will be sent to Rwanda then it seems a very really possibility that they could be forced into armed groups just as Owen describes.

Rwanda’s land mass is much smaller than the UK - rounded 26,000 km2 (10,000 square miles) compared to 240,000 km2 (94,000 square miles) The UK’s population rounded is 67 million. The population of Rwanda rounded is 14 million. Rwanda is a much smaller, much more densely populated country. If the UK cannot accommodate people what in the world makes the UK government think that Rwanda can? What will it do with the people sent there? Kigali is only about 100 miles from the conflict in Goma that the young man on QT described. How is this safe?

This the latest legislation:

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2024/8/enacted

Note how many times it insists that Rwanda is a safe place. Note it says that Every decision-maker must conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country. Note it says: the system for the processing of protection claims by relocated individuals is to be improved. Is to be? By whom? By the government of President Kagame who brutally silences his critics?

Lord Victor Adebowale and his comments on QT about not believing in gravity come mind. You can tell yourself over and over that there is no such thing … and then go jump off a roof and see what happens or wtte. Except that it is other people who have already made a perilous journey who are being pushed to test out the theory.

Apart from anything else, the scheme is just completely bonkers. It is ludicrous and whoever thought of it in the first place needs to be exiled there.

That really does tell it like it is TinSoldier. Yes, bonkers.

TinSoldier once again thank you for your well-informed, intelligent post.

But the newly passed law states that Rwanda is a safe place so surely it must be. Or at least, according to the law of this country it is now

Sky news:

". The capacity of the proposed facility in Rwanda is 200 people annually, representing just 0.7% of 2023 small boat arrivals."

It's proposed it will put off people coming to UK. When its 0.7%?

Henry Hill - deputy editor of ConservativeHome:

It isn’t going to stop the boats. It couldn’t, even if it worked perfectly. The number of deportees Rwanda has agreed to take is only a fraction of those that would be needed to create a credible deterrent.

The best explanation for why Sunak has gone so hard on Channel crossings is that he knows he needs to have something to say about immigration, but doesn’t want to talk about legal immigration, which has risen dramatically over the course of the current parliament and far outstrips the crossings of those on small boats.

Now, there’s chatter that the Conservatives might try to make an election issue of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) if it continues to stymie deportations.

This is a comment made based on that article:

The last thing the Tories want is for a flight to actually take off, as it will then clearly show that the deterrence hasn’t worked, once the boat numbers keep coming.

What they actually want are the flights stopped by the ECHR. They can then go to the GE on a campaign based around leaving the EHCR in order to TAKE BACK CONTROL. It worked once for them [with Brexit], and frankly it’s their best bet now to save them from evaporation.

This is so transparent that it is almost painful.

The Rwanda Plan will cost taxpayers £1.8m for each of the first 300 people the government deports to Kigali.

The overall cost of the scheme stands at more than half a billion pounds, according to the National Audit Office. Even if the UK sends nobody to Rwanda, Sunak has signed up to pay £370m from the public purse over the five-year deal.

The Home Office has paid £220m into the Economic Transformation and Integration Fund (ETIF) since April 2022, and it will pay further amounts of £50m in 2024-25, £50m in 2025-26 and £50m in 2026-27.

committees.parliament.uk/work/8093/ukrwanda-migration-and-economic-development-partnership

You know that expression … Laughing all the bank to the bank? I don’t think I have ever seen anyone physically doing that but I imagine Kagame must be.

What a farce.

Apparently (in the Times today) asylum seekers are crossing to N Ireland then on to the Republic of Ireland to avoid being sent to Rwanda.

Seems the Rwanda Bill is working already with unexpected benefits. Well the EU did want a soft border.