Rwanda Plan: Politicians, leaders, and rights organisations react

Since the intro­duc­tion of the Rwan­da plan just over two years ago, there has been much said and writ­ten about it. Indeed today (22^nd April), Prime Min­is­ter Rishi Sunak gave a press con­fer­ence where he once again com­mit­ted him­self to the scheme which he has con­sis­tent­ly claimed was whol­ly nec­es­sary to ​“stop the boats” com­ing across the channel.

Keir Starmer’s Labour par­ty, who Sunak incor­rect­ly blames for block­ing the pas­sage of the lat­est leg­is­la­tion around the scheme, have con­sis­tent­ly stat­ed the scheme, which has a price tag in the hun­dreds of mil­lions, is ​“unwork­able”.

As the Rwan­da Safe­ty bill crunch votes are set to take place in Par­lia­ment, with Sunak threat­en­ing to keep Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans there ​“for as long as it takes” to pass the bill, we reached out to par­ties, politi­cians and migrant rights organ­i­sa­tions to get their take.

Respond­ing to Prime Min­is­ter Rishi Sunak’s press con­fer­ence on his Rwan­da pol­i­cy this morn­ing, Lib­er­al Demo­c­rat Leader Ed Dav­ey said:

“No amount of sound bites or spin can change the fact that the Conservative’s Rwan­da scheme is a colos­sal fail­ure. Mil­lions of pounds and years of gov­ern­ment atten­tion have already been wast­ed, with absolute­ly noth­ing to show for it.

“It’s time for Rishi Sunak to get a grip, get to the Palace and give this coun­try the elec­tion it is cry­ing out for.”

Green Par­ty co-leader Car­la Deny­er told Huck, ​“I don’t want peo­ple risk­ing their lives cross­ing the chan­nel in small boats. But the way to stop that isn’t this puni­tive, inhu­mane approach. It’s pro­vid­ing safe and legal routes for peo­ple to apply for asy­lum from over­seas, and work­ing to fix the rea­sons that peo­ple are hav­ing to claim asy­lum – includ­ing wars and the cli­mate crisis.

“This Bill is sim­ply a very expen­sive way to be cru­el. We need to get the human­i­ty back into our refugee pol­i­cy and Green MPs will cer­tain­ly seek this Bil­l’s abo­li­tion after the Gen­er­al Election.”

Plaid Cym­ru West­min­ster leader Liz Sav­ille Roberts MP told us, ​“The Rwan­da scheme remains unlaw­ful and unfit for any pur­pose. The UK gov­ern­ment has refused House of Lords amend­ments call­ing for such basic things as respect for human rights and mod­ern slav­ery leg­is­la­tion. The remain­ing amend­ments are more basic still – yet the Tories refuse to com­pro­mise on this cru­el Bill. This speaks volumes.

“Rishi Sunak talks of a ​“deter­rent” – but Home Office doc­u­ments show lit­tle evi­dence that poli­cies of deter­rence work, and the Refugee Coun­cil has found that the plan will instead to a high­er risk of exploitation.

“It is not too late to stop this vile – and extra­or­di­nar­i­ly expen­sive — plan. Plaid Cym­ru calls on the Tory gov­ern­ment to stop under­min­ing human rights and turn its hand to a dig­ni­fied, com­pas­sion­ate asy­lum pol­i­cy as a mat­ter of urgency.”

The for­mer leader of the Labour par­ty told us, ​“The Con­ser­v­a­tives’ con­tin­ued efforts to dehu­man­ise refugees is a shame­ful lega­cy of this dis­grace­ful gov­ern­ment. The Rwan­da Bill is a dis­gust­ing piece of leg­is­la­tion designed to demonise the world’s most vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple. Instead of try­ing to pass this appalling leg­is­la­tion, the gov­ern­ment should be build­ing safe routes and a humane migra­tion sys­tem based on care, com­pas­sion and dignity.”

JCWI Pol­i­cy & Advo­ca­cy Man­ag­er Caitlin Boswell said, ​“Most of us are car­ing peo­ple who want to see peo­ple who’ve escaped dan­ger treat­ed with com­pas­sion. But this government’s Rwan­da plan flies in the face of this basic human­i­ty, and means peo­ple who’ve fled vio­lence – includ­ing chil­dren, mod­ern slav­ery and tor­ture sur­vivors – can be forcibly expelled thou­sands of miles away, and placed at grave risk of harm. No one should be sent away against their will — not to Rwan­da, or any­where. Though par­lia­ment might back this shame­ful and sense­less act of per­for­ma­tive cru­el­ty, we know most peo­ple don’t, and that’s why so many of us will con­tin­ue to stand up for people’s right to safe­ty, regard­less of skin colour or where we were born.”

Akiko Hart, Direc­tor of Lib­er­ty, told Huck, ​“Every­one has the right to live in safe­ty, free from per­se­cu­tion, and with dig­ni­ty – but this dis­grace­ful Bill rips apart the basic prin­ci­ples of our human rights pro­tec­tion. Not only does this Bill put the lives and liveli­hoods of refugees at risk, but it also makes it near­ly impos­si­ble for the courts to do their job and to scru­ti­nise the actions of the Gov­ern­ment. Checks and bal­ances are a vital part of our democracy.

“The Bill is a brazen attempt to score polit­i­cal points, with no regard for the harm it inflicts on those it affects. If the Gov­ern­ment can snatch away rights from any sec­tion of soci­ety, this places everyone’s rights at risk. We must stand against the Government’s efforts to attack our rights through this Bill.

Kol­bassia Haous­sou, Direc­tor of Sur­vivor Lead­er­ship and Influ­enc­ing at Free­dom from Tor­ture, told us, ​“We all deserve the chance to live a safe life, and to seek pro­tec­tion when we need it most. When I fled tor­ture in my home­land, the UK grant­ed me sanc­tu­ary and a chance to rebuild my life. But now, peo­ple like me could be sped onto planes to face an unsafe future in Rwan­da, and denied the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty need­ed for their recovery.

“We know from the work we do in our ther­a­py rooms every­day how ter­ri­fied sur­vivors are, and we’ve seen first-hand the awful toll it has tak­en on people’s men­tal health. We urgent­ly need the UK Gov­ern­ment to start treat­ing refugees with decen­cy and stop try­ing to send them thou­sands of miles away.

“Sur­vivors have been at the fore­front of cam­paigns urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to change direc­tion. And we’re not going to stop now. I hope that peo­ple who think the UK should help those flee­ing war and tor­ture will sup­port us and join the grow­ing move­ment call­ing for an asy­lum sys­tem that is humane and com­pas­sion­ate. And treats peo­ple in a way we can be proud of.” 

For live updates on the pas­sage of the bill, check out ourTwit­ter

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