As election campaigns officially kick off, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is back on the airwaves today just hours after he called a general election. On a wet Wednesday evening, a soaking Sunak called on the British people lend his party their support. The Tories would improve the economy, enhance national security and get tougher on migration, the Prime Minister pledged. And yet when quizzed on his immigration deterrent this morning, the PM’s response didn’t sound all that promising…
On BBC Breakfast, the Prime Minister was pressed on stats that showed record levels of illegal crossings to the UK between January to March of this year in a ‘reality check’ that he had ‘not stopped the boats’. On the specifics of his immigration deterrent, Sunak told viewers that flights to Rwanda would indeed leave in July — but was quick to caveat his promise:
If I’m re-elected as Prime Minister on 5 July, these flights will go. We will get our Rwanda scheme up and running.
And on LBC Sunak was even clearer. Asked whether flights will leave ahead of the 4 July poll, the Tory MP replied: ‘No, after the election.’ How interesting…
It poses a rather significant question about the future of the entire Rwanda scheme altogether. Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party announced at the start of the month that it would scrap the Rwanda policy ‘straight away’, and instead focus on hiring specialist investigators to break people-smuggling gangs. Given that Starmer’s army are over 20 points ahead of Sunak’s boys in blue in the polls, unless there are any eleventh hour election miracles, this all looks like the beginning of the end for Rishi’s Rwanda plan — and only a month after it was passed through parliament. Oh dear. It’s not exactly the strongest start to election season…
Watch the clip here:
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