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Starmer Confirms UK to End Sunak’s Rwanda Deportation Policy

Ailbhe Rea and Asad Zulfiqar

6 July 2024 at 8:44 am·1-min read

(Bloomberg) -- UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his new Labour government would scrap predecessor Rishi Sunak’s plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda, confirming his intention to adopt a new approach to immigration.

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Sunak’s Rwanda plan was “dead and buried before it started,” Starmer said in his first press conference as premier on Saturday.

The question of how to stop the small boats carrying migrants across the English Channel was a major theme of the campaign. Sunak called the election without putting his deportation plan into effect, and Labour has repeatedly called it a “gimmick” that wouldn’t work.

Starmer has said his government would shift the focus to the criminal gangs running the people-smuggling trade to tackle the issue. On Saturday, he said the Rwanda policy had never delivered the deterrent that Sunak promised, pointing to the record number of asylum-seekers arriving in the UK so far this year.

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