Good morning. After two years, three prime ministers, four (or five) home secretaries, one cancelled flight and about 75,000 more people crossing the Channel in small boats, the government finally passed its Safety of Rwanda bill late last night. Anyone reaching for a symbol of how dismal the whole process has been might have found it at 9.39pm, when a power cut plunged the House of Lords into darkness. Maybe Rishi Sunak took out his frustrations with peers on the fuse box.
The endless Westminster fight over the policy has somewhat obscured the more fundamental questions of whether it will actually achieve what it promises, and reduce the number of people making the crossing. Even now it has passed, we may still be months away from knowing the answer. Charities described it as “shameful” and “Orwellian”; Sunak proclaimed it as “not just a step forward but a fundamental change in the global equation on migration”. Meanwhile, another £50m will be sent to the Rwandan government now that the bill is becoming law, taking the total cost to £290m before a single flight has taken off.
