Priti Patel has challenged opponents to come up with a better plan than her strategy to send illegal migrants to Rwanda.
The Tory Home Secretary sought to stoke the row over her controversial plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, claiming they have not provided alternatives.
Writing in The Times with Rwandan foreign minister Vincent Biruta, Patel said her plans were “bold and innovative”.
They said: “We are taking bold and innovative steps and it’s surprising that those institutions that criticise the plans fail to offer their own solutions.”
The fightback came after the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said there were “serious ethical questions” about the plan.
The head of the church of England had warned blocking people claiming refugee status in Britain, and forcibly flying them to Rwanda instead, was “opposite of the nature of God”.
Conservative Energy minister Greg Hands also challenged critics of the plan to come up with a better idea to tackle small boat crossings in the English Channel.
Hands said sending migrants to Rwanda will act as a “significant deterrent” to people attempting to cross the Channel in small boats.
He said: “We think that it will work and we are confident that it will work.”
“We need to be sending that message now – that crossing the Channel illegally isn’t necessarily going to lead to the person being located in the UK.
“So, the relocation to Rwanda is there – it will act as a significant deterrent, we think, to people making that journey. It will ultimately be at the cost of the people smugglers who we want to put out of business.”
Labour’s Shadow policing minister Sarah Jones said it is “madness” to expect migrants to stay in Rwanda after they try to reach the UK.
She claimed the Government is merely “moving” the people smuggling problem, rather than “fixing” it.
Speaking to Times Radio, she said: “The Government hasn’t even said how much this is going to cost – the £120 million is just an upfront payment to the Rwandan government. The actual admin of the scheme, they don’t even know how much that’s going to cost."
Jones added: "Sending people 4,000 miles before they’ve made a claim and expecting them to stay in a country they don’t want to be in is madness.
“We are just moving the people smuggling problem, we are not fixing it, which is what the Government claims to try and do.”
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