Rishi Sunak has admitted there will be no Rwanda deportation flights before the general election.
The morning after calling a snap contest on 4 July, the prime minister said asylum seekers will be deported to the east African nation only “if I am re-elected”.
Pressed repeatedly on whether any deportation flights would take off before voters go to the polls, Mr Sunak repeatedly said the scheme would only get up and running after the election.
He has previously promised to start deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda in the first two weeks of July, with regular flights taking place over the summer.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Mr Sunak said: “We have already started detaining people, we have hired the escorts, we have an airfield on standby. We have booked the flights.
“So all of that work is already ongoing and the choice at this election is clear.
“If I am re-elected as prime minister on 5 July, these flights will go… we will get our Rwanda scheme up and running.”
A Tory source insisted there had been “no change in our plans whatsoever” and “flights will go in the first two weeks of July”.
Government lawyers had previously told the High Court that the earliest date for flights was the week commencing the 24th June.
The PM’s admission raises the prospect that not a single asylum seeker will be deported to Rwanda at all, despite Britain having already spent more than £240m on the scheme.
Yvette Cooper said Mr Sunak’s admission “show this whole Rwanda scheme has been a con from start to finish”.
The shadow home secretary said the reason Mr Sunak called the surprise general election is because he does not believe the Rwanda plan would have worked and was “desperately hoping he won’t be found out”.
She added: “The choice at this election is between a Tory Party with no credible plan and no grip, and a Labour government that will deliver a fully funded Border Security Command to smash criminal gangs and tackle dangerous boat crossings.”
Labour has promised to immediately scrap the scheme if it comes to power, with Sir Keir Starmer vowing that not a single flight will take off if he becomes PM.
And Mr Sunak has accused Sir Keir of having no plan to stop migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats.
In what is set to be a key general election attack line for the prime minister, he told GB News the Labour leader would scrap the Rwanda deportation scheme and “offer an amnesty to illegal migrants”.
Mr Sunak said: “That’s the choice at this election. He thinks that we should offer an amnesty to illegal migrants to make us the soft touch of Europe.
“It would make us a magnet for thousands of migrants coming from everywhere. So that’s the choice of this election. Do you think my plan is the right one? Do you think I’m the one that’s taking bold action to secure our borders and to stop the boats? Or do you think he’s going to do that?”
In light of Mr Sunak’s comments on Thursday morning, MPs and experts have called for migrants who have been detained for flights to be released.
SNP MP Alison Thewliss said: “Those who have been detained under threat of removal to Rwanda must now be released and their cases properly considered here.”
Jon Featonby, policy advisor at the charity Refugee Council, said: “There are still an untold number of people who are in detention, under the Rwanda plan. Given the even greater uncertainty now that any flights will take off, they should all be released.”
Charity Freedom from Torture hailed the news as “a victory for compassionate people up and down the country who have joined our calls for an asylum system that treats people humanely”.
The Rwanda policy was unveiled by then prime minister Boris Johnson and his home secretary Priti Patel in April 2022, but has been bogged down by legal challenges ever since.
But the government’s Safety of Rwanda bill gained royal assent in April, legally deeming the east African nation a safe country for asylum seekers.
Sir Keir has said he will replace the Rwanda policy with “a new approach to small boat crossings that will secure Britain’s borders”.
Announcing his plans this month, he said: “A scheme that will remove less than 1 per cent of arrivals from small boat crossings a year cannot and never will be an effective deterrent.”
Sir Keir is promising to use new counterterrorism powers to tackle people-smuggling gangs.
The Liberal Democrats said it was “an utter humiliation and admission of defeat from a prime minister who has thrown millions at his failing vanity project”.
